Unexpected Alliances
by Madhumalati
Summary: A Teen TitansInuyasha crossover. Trigon's back, and he's looking for a body. Everybody's favourite dog demon comes to Jump City to thwart him, and sets off a different destiny altogether........rated T for mild swearing. InuKag, RaeSess.
1. Chapters 1 to 5

Notes:

Timing:

Inuyasha: begins just after the Hyakki Bats arc and goes AU.

TT: set post-series, at least four years after season 4.

Disclaimer: Oh, for the love of……….NO! I do not own Inuyasha or Teen Titans, being a firm believer in liberty, equality and the fact that all animes, cartoons, novels and movies are real in some alternate dimension. This applies to this entire FANfiction. Don't bug me, jeez. I've lost my temper, and I am not looking.

Unexpected Alliances

_**Prologue: Destiny.**_

Jinx clambered up the grassy slope of the woods outside Jump City, panting with exertion and adrenaline. Her pack, filled with everything she would need, weighed down her right shoulder. She cast a glance at the hilltop and then the glowing display on her watch. Thirty minutes, and three kilometres to go before she began losing time. _Time, _she thought wryly. She started the focusing chant she used, gathering the summoning power. She hadn't used those powers in years, afraid of the results. Even in her worst trouble with Madame Rouge or the Hive, she had suppressed her instincts and contented herself with her hexes. The consequences of not controlling them were simply too great.

Then, ten days ago, she had finally tracked down the document she'd been seeking for years. Now, she couldn't care less what powers she used.

She had hoped that the torment would end with Raven's eighteenth birthday that she would unravel into the peaceful void she had been so cruelly yanked out of, but the Titans had succeeded in banishing Trigon, and she had awakened from the spell knowing that she would now be the instrument of the demon's ascension.

_If I stop him in the past………I stop him here. _As she sprinted into the clearing, with its marvellous view of Jump City and Titans Tower, cast in silver and black, her watch showed 11:34. She dropped the pack and called her power forth, letting it outline her in bright pink as she drew the circle on the ground. She picked up the laminated sheet of paper in her bag and copied the elaborate symbol on the front within the circle. As her hand drew the symbol, guided by her power, the lines she drew in the dirt began to glow white. When she finished the symbol, she was standing in the middle of the circle, surrounded by protection charms and the spell itself. She felt her feet leave the ground, her eyes closing, her bright hair flying as her darker powers came alive around her. A screaming sound filled her ears as Time itself unwound, shattered, frayed and rebuilt itself around her. Dimly, she was aware of the watch breaking apart from the stress the spell placed on her. When the sound died away into a whisper, she opened her eyes, and felt a moment of satisfaction that the spell – almost the first of the kind she had ever cast – had worked perfectly.

She was standing in the shadow of a cluster of tall trees. Tall deciduous trees, not the conifer of Jump City. The air was fresh, clean……far cleaner than any air was in 2010 that was for certain. It was morning, and it had been midnight when she cast the spell. A child squealed in pleasure, running through a meadow filled with wildflowers that certainly didn't belong in Jump City either. That wasn't what convinced her, though.

The inuyoukai standing in front of her, a faint trace of surprise on his otherwise immobile features, that was the clincher. Long silvery white hair…….check; amber slit eyes……check; cheek stripes and crescent moon ……..check; white robes……..check.

Jinx looked again at the sheet in her hands, at the drawing in it, double-checking before she said, 'Sesshoumaru?'

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If she expected any sort of reaction, she was sorely disappointed. Other than a minute twitch of an eyebrow, the only sign that he even acknowledged her presence was the low growl that vibrated in his chest. With her keen hearing, she could just barely hear it. She tried again.

'Are you Sesshoumaru?'

'Do not refer to this Sesshoumaru by his name, impudent child!' he said…….no, growled. _Oh, yeah,_ Jinx thought to herself. _Definitely inuyoukai._ Strangely, he made no move towards her, though she was certain he was itching to disembowel her.

'I apologise,' she said quickly. No sense in alienating the guy before she could tell him anything. 'This is the only name that I know. My name is Jinx.'

'And why should that interest me?' he said, half turning away.

All right. You want to play hard to get? Get this. 'I come from the future…….nearly five hundred years in the future. And I have a warning for you.'

Eyebrow twitch. Face half-turning back to her. A loud sniff. Well, at least he was paying attention. 'There's a demon in my time. An interdimensional demon called Trigon, quite possibly the most powerful demon ever to exist. To cut a long story short, some……. acquaintances of mine banished Trigon a few years ago. They didn't manage to kill his spirit, though she…..they……did a good job on his body. I found a document some days ago that suggested that he came into the past, into this time, to capture a body strong enough to contain his……….it said that he took yours. With your body and his power, he laid waste to the world……and to others.'

'Impossible,' he corrected her sharply. Was it her imagination, or did he just sniff her again? Or the air around her? Why did he keep doing that? 'I cannot be possessed by a youkai – I have never met one strong enough to do that.'

'Trigon succeeded,' she countered. 'I know this for a fact. I can show you.'

She stepped towards him, intending to show him the prophecy. She was a little surprised when he drew his sword. 'Come no closer, spirit,' he warned.

'Spirit?' she said. Was the translation spell malfunctioning? 'I'm not a ghost!'

'You have no smell, human,' he said. 'The stink of your kind does not stain the air around you. Are you so foolish that you do not know that you are dead?'

'I'm – not – dead!' she gritted. 'I'm a projection!' Stink? Stain? That was offensive. Calling her dead – and too stupid to know it – was even worse. If her life hadn't been on the line, he'd have been a puddle of pink hexed-youkai by now. Still………she stepped right up to Sesshoumaru, ignoring personal space and common courtesy, and shoved the prophecy in his face. 'Read that, dumbass,' she snarled. He took it in one hand – in his only hand. The prophecy came alive as he looked, mesmerised, at the paper. She heard the words of the prophecy again in her mind, in the voice of the one who had made it. There were some phrases and sentences there that she simply didn't understand, but they seemed to make sense to him. _Proof of identity? Perhaps……there's more magic there than I can sense, that's for sure._ When he finished, the prophecy disintegrated. 'He left me two copies. One for me, one for you.'

'That……..' he said, sounding shaken. 'That is my handwriting. That is my voice.'

'Yes,' she confirmed. 'Your voice, your hand…….but controlled by Trigon. He sent me the prophecy years ago, as a challenge, but it was…….intercepted……by others, and held from me.' Her hand flexed as Brother Blood's pasty face flashed before her eyes. 'I found it yesterday. I have only a few days left. And so…….'

She drew a deep breath. Now or never. 'I'm offering you a trade.'

Eyebrow twitch again, but no other reaction. Was he _trying_ to annoy her to death? 'Come back to the future with me. Trigon won't find a body powerful enough to support him if you aren't here. Help me destroy him.'

'You said a trade,' he said. 'What have you to offer me in return?'

'I thought that was obvious,' Jinx said, shaking her hair out. 'Your life. If you're in the future, Trigon won't have a body capable of sustaining him.' His eyes flashed, and she felt a chill run through her. Maybe it wasn't the wisest thing to be so catty around him. Sure, she couldn't be harmed in this form, but there were no guarantees once they were back in Jump City. Even Trigon's protection only went so far.

'Done,' he said finally, coldly. 'On one condition.' A thumb jerked at the little girl playing in the field. 'Rin!' he called, his inflection never changing. The girl trotted over to him and caught a lock of his hair, toying with it, looking up at him questioningly. Sesshoumaru looked down at her for a second, eyes unreadable. Then he looked back up at Jinx. 'She comes with me.'

'Done,' Jinx said immediately. Changing the timeline was an acceptable risk. Unless the Titans were affected, it wouldn't matter in the long run when placed against Trigon's ascension. She extended a gloved hand to him and another to Rin, but the youkai took both Rin's hands in his one hand, not allowing her to touch the girl. Jinx shrugged; if the youkai felt protective, that took him up a few notches in her esteem. It also meant he was smart, not to trust anyone. Jinx stepped back into the circle, becoming corporeal again, and took his arm instead. The symbol glowed, and Time fractured, different in some indefinable way but the same still. She double-checked that both of them were with her as the spell unwound. Sesshoumaru was examining the symbol, detached interest the only thing he permitted his body to convey. The girl was clinging to the youkai's hands, eyes wide but trusting. Briefly, Jinx wondered what he had done to deserve it.

Then the spell completed itself, dropping them back in Jump City. Jinx sighed in relief as she spied the familiar bold T-shaped building in the lightening morning sky. Her two passengers were looking around them as well. She stepped out of the now-dark circle, drawing them with her, bone-tired as the adrenaline faded. She leaned against a large rock, some part of her registering that Rin was flopping down beside her.

And then she cursed as Rin slipped right through the rock. Not slipped, exactly. More like became insubstantial and sank slowly down through it.

Sesshoumaru noticed too, obviously, and his eyes narrowed. Without moving any other muscle, he seemed suddenly ready to wreak havoc on the known universe.

'Explain,' he rumbled in a chilling whisper, his hand on his sword. Just one word, but Jinx suddenly knew why Trigon wanted this one.

'Oh, shit,' she mumbled.

'I'd gotten that far on my own, miserable human!' he roared. 'What have you done?'

'I…..' she stumbled over her words. 'I've left your physical bodies behind. I didn't have enough power to bring your bodies here with your spirits. You're only substantial to me.'

He took a step towards her, and she retreated, everything spinning crazily around her as she fought for consciousness. The spell had taken much more out of her than she thought. 'You're not dead or anything back there!' she said hastily. 'Just……..comatose. You can be brought here fully, both of you! I know how. I just don't have the strength needed for that.'

She looked at Titans' Tower, which seemed to be silently telling her off. 'And I know someone who does. We need to go…….there…..'

She was fairly certain she pointed at the lighthouse before she fainted.

**_Chapter One: Dawn visitors_**

Early mornings weren't Cyborg's time, not really. None of the Titans were cheery in the morning……except for Starfire, who was the soul of lightness and bounce at any hour. Robin could be counted upon to growl at anyone who made him use more than three syllables in a row, Raven never spoke until she'd finished her morning routine and Beast Boy never troubled to drag himself out of bed before ten unless they were on the job. On the rare occasions when Cyborg woke before the others, he liked to make himself a stack of waffles and retreat to the garage with the outer door open and tinker with the T-Car or read a magazine. It was nice like that, alone in the cool morning breeze. Peaceful.

Just as the word _peaceful_ flashed through his mind, the universe restored its original Cyborg-hating policy. The perimeter alarm began to clang loudly. The waffles leaped off the plate in a graceful arc, and would have squashed on the ground if Cyborg's reflexes hadn't been so good. The cameras turned on automatically, and he goggled at the bizarre group approaching the front door of Titans' Tower. One was a tall guy dressed in some weird sort of dress – Japanese, he presumed, though the style was one he didn't recognise, with long flowing white hair and two swords at his hip. A spiky breastplate, and as the camera zoomed in on his face, Cyborg saw crimson stripes, pointed ears and catlike amber eyes. A crescent moon curved on his forehead. The energy readings off this one were off the charts, heart rate almost twice that of a human, but his body heat was more or less normal. One hand was holding the hand of…….what looked like a very normal little girl, some eight or nine years old. She was saying something excitedly, brimming with delight as she looked at him, at the flowers on the island, at the giant building they were approaching. The man was also supporting someone who was slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Wait a minute. Lavender hair, ponytails. Cyborg knew that hair; he'd stared at it long enough during his time at the HIVE for it to be permanently branded into his memory.

'……..Jinx?' he said, and promptly dropped the waffles.

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Raven came to a stop in front of the doors, slightly to the side of the rest of the Titans. Cyborg was goggling at Jinx, Robin was tense, anticipating a fight of some sort, Starfire looked torn between making friends and waiting to see if they were enemies, Beast Boy looked half-asleep – in fact, he was wearing a sock on his hand. Raven took this in in a single glance before the youki radiating from the man overwhelmed her.

As a half-demon, Raven knew that others somewhat like her did exist; that demons had lived in the past, had populated large areas of the world. They weren't the same creatures she was, not exactly; they were youkai, spirits, to be precise, represented by different animals. However, to the best of everyone's knowledge, they had died out or emigrated to other worlds in the last three centuries, and there was – count 'em – one being with demonic blood on Earth at the moment. Raven herself.

This man was definitely a youkai, though. His markings were unfamiliar, but the features were enough to mark him as nonhuman.

As she watched, he shrugged a shoulder, depositing Jinx in an untidy heap on the hard ground, and said something to them in Japanese.

Robin replied in the same tongue, speaking as fluently as the youkai had. She was surprised, then surprised that she was surprised. Of course Robin would know Japanese. He always knew what he needed to. He exchanged a flurry of words with the youkai, and then turned to the others.

'He says his name is Sesshoumaru. He's the Lord of the Western Lands, whatever that means. Jinx brought him here…..'

'Where is he from?' Raven interrupted him. The demon's – Sesshoumaru's – eyes flickered towards her briefly, and she could sense him reading her aura. Half human, half youkai with wards and magic from another dimension – if this youkai was a native of this planet, no wonder he looked a little puzzled by her aura.

She summoned her magic and cast a simple translation spell. Suddenly, what the youkai was saying made sense.

'……….to the lighthouse before she fainted. She said that one here had the power to complete the spell. The hanyou.' And here he gestured to Raven.

A flare of hot anger shot through her, and she quickly clamped down on the emotion. Though her emotions were less inclined to go crazy and blow things up after her battle with Trigon, she still kept herself under careful control. She didn't have to blow up a building to kill people; an accidental short-circuit could do the job as well. _Hanyou? Who does he think he is?_ Memories of her early years in Azarath threatened to enter her mind, and she pushed them out before they could parade in front of her.

Robin turned to the others, looking skeptical. 'He says he's from the past. Jinx brought him here………..he says Trigon is still alive.'

The statement rippled through the Titans. 'No way, dude!' Beast Boy said incredulously. 'Raven totally fried him! We saw it!'

'It's possible,' Raven said, masking her emotions in her monotone voice. 'Trigon's body died, true, but I've never been sure that I erased his spirit. I only said he was dead because his link with me snapped. There's no way to tell for certain.'

'You mean…….he could be out there this minute,' Robin said softly. 'But he doesn't have a body. And he can't get here without a portal, right?'

Behind Sesshoumaru, Jinx hauled herself upright. The youkai stepped away from her, and as she stood shakily Cyborg quickly supported her. 'He has a portal,' she said weakly. 'I'm the portal. And if we don't finish the spell quickly, he'll have a body as well.'

Decision made, Raven acted, floating over to Cyborg and Jinx and taking the sorceress' arm in a death grip. 'All right,' she said evenly. 'Let's go inside and discuss this some more.'

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'So, this prophecy,' Robin began tentatively. They were seated on the sofa in the living room, Jinx the centre of attention. Sesshoumaru was standing stiffly to the side, taking no apparent interest in the conversation – even though he could now understand them, thanks to another of Jinx's spells. Rin wandered through the room, poking at things and looking disappointed when her fingers passed through. Raven floated next to Jinx. She looked as impassive as ever, but Robin had learned to read her over the years, and she positively radiated anger. Sure, she didn't really like Jinx – okay, she really didn't like Jinx – but the anger was directed at the demon, too, and he didn't understand why.

'It says that the youkai guy – ' they'd all stayed away from referring to him by name after the first time he snapped at them – 'gets taken over by Trigon, and then he goes to his dimension, wherever it is. Then he recreates his own body, discards his temporary body and re-enters the mortal plane, using Jinx as his portal. Or at least, that's what the prophecy says.'

Jinx nodded. She sat limply on the sofa, feeling a little restored after three tall glasses of water and an aspirin.

'So. Give us a reason to believe you.'

She really didn't have time for this. 'Raven, do _you_ believe me?' she said directly, staring the violet-haired girl in the eyes.

Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded. 'You have the feel of……of Trigon's magic about you,' she admitted. 'Now that I know what it is, it's obvious.'

That seemed to do it for the rest of the Titans. Beast Boy and Cyborg relaxed an infinitesimal inch, and even Robin looked a little less unhappy. Until Jinx spoke again.

'Good. You're the only one I'm interested in.'

Cyborg looked a little hurt by that.

'If you can complete the spell for me, I'll be on my way. I apologise,' and Jinx looked almost nauseous for saying that – 'for any inconvenience this may cause. Just consider the alternative.' She felt dizzy and leaned back against the soft plush of the sofa gratefully. The world went black as the sleep she had been holding back took over with a vengeance.

'She's fainted!' Cyborg said, alarmed, rushing over to her. He laid a hand on her throat, felt her temperature. 'I…..I don't understand. Her skin's ice-cold. And she barely has a pulse. But she was talking to us a moment ago……'

'A healing trance,' Raven interrupted. 'Something like mine, I guess. Take her to the examining room and give her some privacy. She should be fine in a couple of days.'

Cyborg nodded and obediently scooped her up.

'Sesshoumaru,' Raven said. 'Give me some time with my books. I'll see what I can do.'

_**Chapter Two: Ticketless passengers.**_

Meanwhile, in Sengoku Jidai, a small group of travellers in search of Shikon shards had found the bodies of Sesshoumaru and Rin.

'Oi, rat-face,' Inuyasha said, prodding his half-brother with a curious foot, much harder than necessary. 'Taking a nap or something?'

'What's wrong with him, Inuyasha?' Kagome asked.

'I don't sense any life force in him. It's as if he's soulless, but he's breathing and his heart's beating. The girl's, too. I don't understand.'

'This is strange,' Miroku said to Sango, hand on chin. 'I've always thought Sesshoumaru was stronger than soul-stealer demons. Why would he be like this?'

'Oi!' Inuyasha said again, kicking Sesshoumaru on the shin, which earned him no reaction except an annoyed 'Sit boy!' from Kagome. He yelped and crashed to the ground next to the demon.

'JERK!' He roared through a mouthful of dirt.

'I don't know of any youkai that would do this,' Sango admitted, sidestepping the falling Inuyasha with easy practice, and coming from the taijiya, that statement meant a lot. 'It's something entirely new.'

'Well, that's it then,' said Inuyasha, picking himself off the ground.

'What is that supposed to mean?' Kagome asked him indignantly.

'Well, you obviously don't sense any Shikon shards, so let's move on.'

'We can't just leave them there!' Shippou said.

'No,' Inuyasha said, an evil light in his eyes. 'I think I'll have a bit of fun before that. Pants him, maybe?' he moved to Sesshoumaru's side, hands flexing.

Kagome sighed. 'Just think; in a few years, my baby'll be in kindergarten.' She was just opening her mouth to sit him to the centre of the earth…….

When the sky split apart in a swirling dark vortex of energy, silver-blue lightning flashing within it, and a giant black raven's claw, crackling with dark power, reached down and swept up the two motionless bodies.

Unfortunately, it swept up the others, too. Only Shippou and Kirara were left behind, staring comically up at the sky.

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Raven jerked, startled, as the weight she had been expecting more than tripled. _What the………_but it was too late, and her claw snapped back through the time. As she solidified from her soul form, a large group of people tumbled out through the portal behind her.

Her eyes snapped back to Sesshoumaru and Rin. Their spirit-forms were drawn, almost magnetically, to their bodies. As the two merged, a blinding lightning-flash filled the room. When she could see again, Rin was squealing with glee at being able to finally touch the sofa in the living room. Sesshoumaru was flexing his hand, looking mildly pleased. _Hn,_ Raven thought. _He's almost as good as repressing emotion as I am._

'Not bad, hanyou,' he told her.

'Don't call me that,' she said in an emotionless voice that nonetheless had the Titans moving away from her nervously.

Then he lifted his head, sniffing, and before she could wonder why he was doing that, his fists clenched. 'Pathetic hanyou,' he snarled, unsheathing his sword, and before Raven could blast him to kingdom come for saying it again, she saw that he wasn't addressing her.

Her attention turned to the others who'd come through the portal.

The first was a woman in some sort of catsuit with armour; the second a man in some sort of religious robe. The third was a girl in a school uniform, and this, in that company, made Raven's eyebrows hit the ceiling. The last was a long white-haired boy in red robes……..and were those dog ears on his head? That was strange even by Raven's standards. As he lifted his face, groaning, 'Kagome? This looks like…..' she saw his amber eyes and realised he looked like……..

'Is this guy a relative of yours, Sesshoumaru? He kind of looks like you.'

'Do not compare this Sesshoumaru to the filthy hanyou, woman!' he snarled. 'And do not presume to refer to me by name! I will be addressed as –'

'You will be addressed as whatever I damn well choose to address you as!' she snarled back, getting in his face, even if he was a foot taller. The lamp behind Sesshoumaru exploded, showering him with glass. Dark energy flamed to life around her. He didn't seem to notice. 'And the next time you call me anything other than my name, I'll blast you into another dimension! Or are you too stupid to remember it?'

Complete silence fell.

It was suddenly shattered by a snicker. Both Raven and Sesshoumaru whirled to face the man with dog ears.

'Ooh, she has you whipped, Fluffy,' he said.

'Fluffy?' Raven looked back at him. He snarled wordlessly.

'Shut up, Inuyasha,' the girl snapped. She turned to Raven and said politely, 'Where are we?'

'You spoke English!' Beast Boy said, surprised. 'Who are you?'

'My name is Higurashi Kagome. This is Sango,' indicating the woman in armour, 'And that's Miroku. I'm from Tokyo. Is this the future?'

'Ye-es,' said Robin slowly. 'How did you guess?'

'Oh, I'm from the future myself,' she chirped. 'And where in the…….' She trailed off, looking closely at them. 'Oh my God,' she said. 'You're the Titans, aren't you! I didn't recognise you for a moment. Sorry!'

'You know these people?' Inuyasha said, staring at them. They were an odd group. No one seemed to be the same colour – green, white, orange, blue and brown, and the gray girl who yelled at Sesshoumaru, she was a half-youkai of some sort.

'Of course, Inuyasha!' Kagome chattered on. 'They're famous crime fighters with superpowers!'

Despite himself, Sesshoumaru was being drawn into the conversation. Who were these people, and how did the miko know them?

And the cloaked girl had shouted at him. He would have to kill her for it, of course, but there was no harm in doing it later, when there were fewer annoyances around. Namely that sickening half-brother of his.

'Very well,' he announced. 'Come, Rin. We are leaving.' The girl came obediently to his side as he turned toward the door.

'Not so fast,' Raven said reluctantly. He looked over his shoulder, eyes boring through her. 'The spell worked fine, but your spirit isn't firmly attached to your body yet. I'm going to have to be the anchor of the spell, since I was the one who cast it. You'll need to be near this place, near me, until the spell fades completely. A week, maybe more. I'm strong, but even I can't join a soul to a body at one go.'

Sesshoumaru looked ready to burst a blood vessel. 'Are you suggesting that I stay here in the presence of this filth of a brother of mine, hanyou?'

'That's exactly what I'm saying,' said Raven in a calm voice that screamed _get out of my way or be left in component molecules _to everyone who knew her. 'Unless you want to die, of course. Which wouldn't exactly have me ripping my hair in grief, but oh well.' He looked like he might take her up on the offer. 'And the girl will die as well.' That subdued him, Raven noted. So he did care about her.

Robin's mind was groaning from the stress it was going through. First he learned there were more demons out there than his best friend and her daddy not-so-dearest. Then he witnessed another of Raven's time-travelling spells, which were unnerving at best. Then a whole lot of strange people had come back through the portal. And then they all seemed to know each other, and at least one of them was a time traveller in her own right, which was just weird.

Damn it, it was too late in the night for that!

'Heh. So we're in the future again?' Inuyasha didn't sound too fazed by that, though the two other humans seemed a little shell-shocked. He shrugged at Raven. 'Well, you'll just have to send us back then.'

_Well, _he's_ being respectful,_ Kagome mused. _Then again, it's Raven he's talking to. He'd better be. _

'Although,' he continued, 'it's been a good trip all around.'

Raven raised an eyebrow.

'I'd do a lot more time travelling if it meant seeing the moron being bullied by a little girl. Hah! Brought to heel rather quick, isn't he?' he snickered again.

'Filthy hanyou,' Sesshoumaru snarled, heading towards Inuyasha, who drew an impressively long sword out of a scabbard that, by all rights, shouldn't have been able to hold it at all. 'I WILL KILL YOU! HOW DARE YOU LAUGH AT –ugh!'

He had stalked right into a bubble of dark energy which held him motionless. And soundless, judging by his purpling face and working mouth. Inuyasha smirked and leaped straight at him, swinging his suddenly-red sword.

'SIT BOY!' Kagome screamed. The necklace around his throat suddenly glowed, and he crashed thunderously face down to the soft carpeting with a loud 'Gah!'

'Whoa,' Cyborg breathed in the ensuing silence. 'Talk about girl power.' He went over to the counter and began making himself pancakes. 'This should be good.'

Sesshoumaru broke free of the energy at the same moment. 'How dare you….' he began.

Raven put one palm out in a pacifying gesture. 'Please. I have no desire to see blood spilt here today. If you don't attack him until I can send them back, I will consider your debt repaid.' Her voice was formal in a way that the Titans had never heard before. Demonic etiquette? Cyborg wondered. After all, he'd never seen her talk to any youkai other than Trigon himself.

'What debt?'

'I did save your life by bringing your body here, Sesshoumaru,' she reminded him. 'You would have died in hours if I had not cast the spell. Which I was under no obligation to.'

That deflated his anger. Somewhat. He retreated into his shell.

'Very well,' he said, cool and aloof once more. 'If the worthless fool will stay away from me, I will not attack him.'

'Thank you,' Raven said, still formal. She turned to Inuyasha, who was still chewing carpet. Then she reconsidered and asked Kagome, reverting to her normal speech, 'Will you keep him away from Sesshoumaru?'

'Oi! I'm right here, you know!'

'Of course I will,' Kagome said brightly, blithely ignoring Inuyasha's annoyed words.

'That should do it.' The two shared a smile, though Raven's was only a twitch of her lip.

'Wench,' Inuyasha grumbled. Sesshoumaru smirked.

'Sit boy,' he drawled mockingly. Inuyasha made to get up from the floor, caught Kagome's eye and wisely reconsidered.

'Where do you come from; what is your favorite color; do you wish to be my friend?'

Well, that was Starfire's routine. Robin uncrossed his eyes to see her cheerfully addressing the other man, Miroku, who was looking from one to another rather confusedly. Robin knew just how he felt.

'Star, he can't understand you,' Raven said. 'The spell Jinx cast only works one way unless you've youkai blood.'

Kagome translated, and Miroku smiled and said, 'Feudal Japan, purple, and it would be my pleasure.'

Starfire grabbed him gently by the shoulders of his dark robe and gave him a smacking kiss. Miroku's arms flailed wildly for a second, and then, just as he was going to put them around her, she withdrew. In perfect Japanese, she said, 'Welcome to Jump City, Miroku.'

'What did you just do?' Sango sounded aghast.

'I kissed him,' Starfire said. 'It is how my people learn languages.' Miroku was still catching his breath. Again, Robin knew exactly how he felt. Starfire didn't really have to breathe, and when she kissed, it showed.

'I also know Mandarin Chinese and a little Sanskrit,' Miroku said hopefully.

'SHUT UP, HOUSHI-SAMA!' Miroku nursed his ear as Sango gritted her teeth and grinned apologetically at Starfire.

'So how come your Japanese is better than your English was?' Kagome said.

'Ahh………' Starfire went a brilliant shade of red. 'As I recall, I was a little……..distracted at the time, as it was the first time I had ever been required a language in that manner. It was not very effective. I find that most people I learn a language from are distracted. Robin was also very distracted. Miroku was not distracted at all.' She touched her lips thoughtfully.

The Boy Wonder was purple in the face by now, and Beast Boy rolled around on the ground giggling. Raven's mouth was twitching, and Cyborg was panting for breath.

'Aaahh,' Miroku said, drawing it out. 'I see.'

'So send us back already,' Inuyasha growled. 'You do know how, right?'

Raven raised an eloquent eyebrow. 'Of course. But………'

'But WHAT!'

'Well, there's certain times of the lunar cycle that are conducive to this sort of spell, and some that aren't. And……this would be a very wrong time to travel backwards in time.'

'What d'you mean, wrong time?'

'I mean you'd travel a certain distance backwards in time and then…….' She levitated one of Cyborg's pancakes, ignoring his cry of protest. It reached a decent height and then slammed down into the floor, smashing into tiny crumbly pieces and leaving a large wet stain on the carpet. Everyone made a face. Even Sesshoumaru looked a little sick.

'Okay,' said Kagome. 'So when can we go back then?'

Raven did a few calculations. 'Fourteen days.'

'Fourteen days…….?' the hanyou whined, and then he looked at the pancake and gulped. 'Fourteen days sounds just fine.'

'Marvellous!' Starfire said, grabbing Miroku's arm in one hand and Sango's in the other. 'Come, my friends! I shall take you to my bedroom and we can hang!'

'Heh,' said Beast Boy. 'Wonder if her Japanese is as bad as her English used to b–'

A feminine yell echoed through the hallway – from Starfire – followed by a screech of 'Hentai!' – from Sango – and a sharp cracking sound and a yelp – from Miroku.

'Now, now, Sango,' a smooth voice protested. 'I was merely….' The rest was inaudible.

'HENTAI!' Thwap!

'I'm terribly sorry,' Kagome said. 'The houshi has a bad habit of touching women's…..eh……behinds. Sango usually hits him with the boomerang when he does that; he's only really safe when he's knocked out.'

Cyborg, the only Titan with an active romantic life, turned slightly green at the thought of being hit with the seven-foot weapon every time he tried to pick up a girl.

'Woman,' Sesshoumaru said evenly to Raven. She turned to face him with her best death glare. It didn't faze him in the least. 'If you expect me to tolerate the company of these dissolute fools……….'

'The other end of the tower. Right.'

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Ultimately, most of the time travellers wound up in somebody's room. Sango and Kagome shared with Starfire, who had a huge bed and several sofas, and Robin with Miroku. Inuyasha stayed with Cyborg.

At which point they ran into problems.

Stopping dead some ten feet from the room, nose twitching madly, Sesshoumaru swept back to the living room and refused flat out to room with Beast Boy, saying that if anything at all was capable of killing him, it was the smell in there.

Inuyasha smirked and said something about how remarkable it was that Sesshoumaru had a sense of smell left since he stank so badly.

Sesshoumaru made a reply about worthless hanyous who wouldn't even notice the smell, lacking anything approaching a nose.

Several objects in the room exploded in dark energy at the phrase hanyou, thus making the living room entirely uninhabitable.

Everybody looked at Raven, the only one with a spare couch left.

Beast Boy looked at her with big pleading eyes.

Raven sighed in agreement, saying only that if Sesshoumaru were rooming with her he would have to take the consequences.

Sesshoumaru sniffed and turned away. Rin giggled, having taken a liking to Raven.

Raven kindly asked him to be silent while he stayed with her.

Sesshoumaru replied that that would be only natural, as she was hardly worth his, Sesshoumaru's, notice.

More objects flew about.

Raven began to chant quietly and fervently.

Cyborg opened a book on which one they'd find dead in the morning.

_**Chapter Three: Wind tunnel**_

Raven opened the door to her room. The inuyoukai stepped through before she could enter. He coldly surveyed the grey and black room, the sculptures, the large bed…..

'Don't even go there,' Raven said. 'The bed is mine. You get the sleeping mats. If you have a problem, just tell me and I'll ignore it immediately.'

Silence. Apparently he was serious about not speaking. Rin darted around the room, and Raven tried hard to restrain her murderous instincts. She went over to the dresser, and Raven leapt to grab her mirror away before the child could get drawn in. Rin looked cutely disappointed before running away and touching other things that probably shouldn't be. It was exactly like the time she'd had to baby-sit those kids…….there was a disaster to be averted every twenty seconds on average.

'Good night,' said Raven. 'And keep that kid under control.'

She levitated a bookshelf across the middle of the room to form a barrier of sorts. The last she saw of Sesshoumaru, he was Looking Unimpressed.

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'So you're a monk, huh,' Robin said to Miroku. 'So you…….what is it you can do?'

'Certain spiritual powers,' Miroku said dismissively. 'And I have a void in my right palm that can suck anything into it.'

'Interesting,' Robin remarked. He'd met his share of superheroes with strange powers, but a void like that sounded dangerous. 'Why do I feel there's a downside to that void?'

'Oh, there is,' Miroku said casually. Robin knew that calm; it was exactly like his own, and it was an illusion. 'It grows larger the more I use it. If I overuse it, the wind tunnel will simply grow until I'm sucked into it myself. Of course, that probably won't happen. The poison that keeps it open is going to kill me first. A few more years, and that's it. Unless I kill Naraku.'

'How old are you?'

'Twenty-two.'

'And this….Naraku. He's responsible for this void of yours?'

'Well, now, that's a long story.' Miroku settled himself better on the bed, relaxing in the comfortable dim light. Damn, these things were nice. Maybe Kagome could bring him a mattress the next time she went through the well. 'It all began with the creation of a jewel called the Shikon no Tama…..'

They talked well into the night; first Miroku, and then, tentatively, Robin spoke. By midnight, the foundation of a friendship had been laid between two very different people.

'Oh, Miroku?' Robin said just before they slept.

'Yes, Robin?'

'I like you. You're a nice sort of guy. But the next time you touch Starfire without her express permission, I'm putting you through a shredder, understand?'

Miroku swallowed.

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The next morning, Raven woke up at her usual pre-dawn hour. There was someone in her room. Why was there…..oh. That bloody youkai and the little one. He was sleeping soundly by the sound of his breathing.

Sighing, she woke up and began drifting to the bathroom. She moved the bookshelf aside noiselessly, but on the other side, Sesshoumaru was wide awake, if half dressed, sword drawn, Rin tucked securely behind him, still asleep. She had to admire his reflexes.

'Relax,' Raven said. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

'I do not fear the likes of you,' he growled. She met it with a blank face.

'No, I didn't expect that. You haven't the brain.'

And before he could retort, she slammed the bathroom door loudly and pointedly.

When she came out, he was dressed, bed neatly rolled up. Rin was still asleep. She cast a doubtful eye over his elaborate attire, the billowing dress, the spiky breastplate and weird furry thing. 'You sure you want to wear all that?' she said.

Sesshoumaru said something unprintable.

She shrugged. 'Feel free to stow some of it away in the lockers if you want to. I'll give you the combination.'

His curiosity overcame his stiffness. 'What are these lockers you speak of?'

'Hm. I'll show you.' A moment of perversity made her phase backwards through the door, and his eyes widened ever so slightly before he controlled his expression.

Generously, she didn't snicker.

As she phased through the door, she nearly crashed into Robin, who was walking down the corridor with Sango, Miroku and Starfire. Miroku caught her in a very gentlemanly fashion. She felt his hand trail over her back.

'Try it and die.' She shot him her best death glare.

Miroku prudently withdrew his hand. Robin looked torn between sympathy and amusement, having been on the receiving end of that glare a few times himself.

Sesshoumaru slammed the door open, nearly whacking everybody with it. He shut it behind him as if he hadn't and walked calmly down the corridor beside Raven.

'That guy's just weird,' he heard the boy say quietly behind him.

'I believe he is – the words are simply freaky, yes?' he heard the girl agree.

Sesshoumaru huffed silently. As if their lowered voices wouldn't carry to his sensitive ears. As if he cared. He walked beside Raven, noting that she preferred to float rather than walk. At that level, she was nearly of a height to look him in the eye. Maybe that was why she was doing it. Stupid hanyou.

Powerful hanyou, however. He still remembered the way she had effortlessly trapped him in her energy the day before. And she could do much more than that, he was sure. From years of fighting Inuyasha, he had learned not to underestimate hanyous. That baka half-brother of his had given him his share of injuries, notably the missing arm. The girl – whose demonic heritage he had yet to identify, but which was hauntingly familiar – was probably more powerful than the baka was.

They walked into the place where she had cast the spell the night before. It had been cleaned up somewhat, and now looked a little better, though far from spotless. Actually, Ra-the girl's room had been the only really clean place in the tower.

The metalman was behind the counter, cooking. Strange sweet smells hit him like a punch in the nose. Raven, ignoring him, drifted over to the counter. As Sesshoumaru watched intently, she boiled a mug of water with a flick of her hand and tapped a few spoons of tea into it. It smelled strong and bitter but good. If he had wanted to eat, he might have asked for some. The metalman came over.

'Rae, Sesshy,' he greeted them. The inuyoukai looked up indignantly as he realised that he was _Sesshy_, feeling extremely put upon. 'Want some waffles?'

Raven simply Looked at him. Sesshoumaru admitted internally to being impressed by the Look. It was nearly as good as anything he could have come up with, and he was centuries older than she was even without the time travel. And a foot taller. That usually helped.

'Sesshy?' Cyborg said again. Two identical Looks were turned on him, and he retreated.

'Raven? Cyborg?' Beast Boy's green head popped through the doorway. 'Robin says training starts at seven-thirty.'

'Training?' he asked Raven.

'We have to train everyday to protect the city,' she shrugged. 'Of course, Robin's a fanatic, and he makes us do ten times the training we would.'

'I will join you,' he said. He wanted to know more about these Titans; this seemed a good opportunity.

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By the time Sesshoumaru and Raven arrived, Robin had already finished running through the obstacle course a few times, and was running a hand through his spiky hair, complaining about the lack of challenge the course offered these days. Everyone was there, except for Jinx, who was still in her trance.

'I'll take you on,' Sango offered. 'Unarmed combat, one on one.'

Robin agreed.

'This should be good,' Inuyasha chuckled. 'Shorty's going to get his butt kicked from here to Japan.'

'Is she that good?' Raven asked Sesshoumaru quietly.

'Oh, yes,' the youkai replied carelessly. 'Very good. For a human.'

'A small bet, then,' the girl said, an evil smile lurking around her mouth. 'If Robin wins, you'll lay off the "human" comments for a week. If he wins within three minutes, you call me Raven.'

'And if he loses……..'

'You get my room to yourself for a week.'

'Done,' he said instantly.

They both turned to watch the fight.

Robin and Sango circled each other. Both were wearing their work clothes, and everyone watching was struck by the similarity of their expression – this fight was hardly serious, but they were acting as if they were in deadly combat. The intensity in their gaze, dispassionate but powerful; their confidence and their watchfulness – they were identical.

Raven and Sesshoumaru watched, both more interested in the outcome than they appeared to be.

Robin threw the first punch, an exploratory jab that Sango ducked easily.

'There's the distinction between the two of them,' the youkai observed. 'She is trained to kill, and he is trained to merely injure his opponent. Should they fight, truly, she would win.' He winced as Sango's fist caught the boy full-on.

'Which is why I'm betting on Robin,' Raven replied. 'He's – oh, nice move – fighting exactly as he's trained to, while she's changing her style in order to practice. The advantage is his.'

Both fighters were quick, strikes being exchanged in a blur; both were deadly focused, and very confident. But the difference between them was clear as well. Sango's style, like Inuyasha's, did not involve kicks, while Robin used his feet to fight as naturally as he used his hands. While she could – and did – use her greater reach and upper-body strength well, Robin used his exposure to different fighting styles to confuse her, switching between one and another just when she thought she had him pegged.

At 2:45 minutes, Sango doubled over as his foot caught her in the gut, twisting past her armour. His fist shot out and slowed enough not to knock her out as he hit her jaw. Sango staggered and threw her hand up, signifying defeat.

'Sesshoumaru?' Raven said, amused.

'You win. Raven.' His face was as expressionless as ever.

She looked back at the others. _Very satisfactory. _

They walked slowly back to the others, Sango still looking amazed that Robin, who was a full head shorter and much thinner than she was, could have beaten her.

'Robin,' she said. He looked at her inquiringly.

'Why don't you teach me some of those moves?'

'Why not?' he said. 'If you'll teach me how to use that huge thing you were carrying yesterday.'

He smiled then, a confident curve of his lips that was devastatingly dangerous and hard to resist. Reflexively, Sango smiled back at him. There was something immediately familiar about him, in the way he fought if not the style, and in the way he moved through his environment. It reminded her strongly of Kohaku, what he could have become with time and training and confidence. For once, the memories didn't hurt.

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Miroku edged closer to Starfire as Robin and Sango fought. The Tamaranean was watching intently, and he took the opportunity to observe the scenery. She was the first girl he'd seen who wore less than Kagome did. His hand inched toward her behind. Just then, Raven caught his eye. She had no expression to read, but something in her steady gaze warned him away. He dropped his hand back to his side, and she nodded once before turning away. _That girl is really weird._

She stood next to Sesshoumaru, dark blue and white, lavender and silver contrasting well. Both of them looked completely blank. As Robin and Sango finished fighting, she turned to him and said something. He replied gravely. When she looked away, the faintest hint of a smile flickered across his mouth. Miroku gaped. Was the Ice Prince displaying emotion? And to a hanyou, no less?

'All right,' Robin called. 'Who's next?'

There was a general murmur of not-me. Sesshoumaru looked as if he might take up the offer, but decided against it.

'Hey, Raven!' Inuyasha called. 'Want to try me?'

Raven shrugged and made her way down the slope, dropping her cloak as she went. Miroku's eyes popped at the amount of leg – and arm – and back – Raven's clothing showed. She took up position in front of Inuyasha, making no move. He unsheathed Tetsusaiga in a flare of golden light and ran at her, preparing to strike.

'Azarath…..Metrion…..Zinthos!' three boulders, wrapped in dark energy, flew at Inuyasha's head from behind him. He heard them and rolled, dodging them. A club swung at him, and he cut it with his sword, slashing at Raven with the same motion. She flew up, barely avoiding it. He leapt up at her, and she parried his blows with lances of energy before he fell back down, not being exempt from gravity.

Raven wiped a trace of blood from her cheek, and flicked it away – apparently, the sword didn't have to touch her to hurt her. She was also cut on her leg.

The fight was getting more earnest now. She sent spikes of energy at him, eyes glowing white. They nicked him, lightly enough to do little damage but deep enough to draw blood. Inuyasha growled, his attacks growing more intense.

Inuyasha's next stab was blocked by a barrier of black that encased him securely.

'WIND SCAR!' he roared and slammed the Tetsusaiga down with all his might. Bright gold shot out from the sword, leaving a set of slashes on the rock and flying out to meet the black shell that caged him.

Before Raven could react, her barrier was in shreds, and the backlash sent her flying several feet to sprawl on her back. Inuyasha sprang to her side, sword inches from her throat. He smirked as she stared up at him, still crackling with black.

'Do you yield?' he said, touching the clasp of her cloak with the Tetsusaiga's point.

'Do……you?' she croaked, one hand gesturing upward. He followed her hand to see a huge boulder hovering a foot or so off his head. He could attack her and defend himself, but it would mean killing her, and this was a friendly fight.

Silence. They stared at each other. Raven was panting with effort.

'A draw?' he offered finally. She blinked in assent, unable to move her head without stabbing herself. He withdrew, and the boulder floated to the ground beside her. He helped her up.

There was applause from the audience.

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Miroku turned to Starfire and half-bowed. 'Would you like to?' he offered. Since it seemed to be Sengoku Jidai vs. Jump City today, he figured he might as well have a turn and Starfire looked easy enough. Besides, he'd be able to cop a feel or two…….

'I apologise, Miroku,' she said, sweatdropping, 'but I fear it would hardly be an equal battle. Would one of your companions perhaps join us?'

He smiled that infamous smile of his. 'I think that won't be necessary.'

Miroku looked at Starfire and smiled again, signaling his readiness. They faced each other on the hard-packed ground. A large quantity of that hard-packed ground wound up in Miroku's mouth approximately two seconds later as Starfire unleashed a thunderous bolt of green lightning that sent him flying. She powered up another rather halfhearted ball and hovered over him.

'I am stronger than I look,' she remarked to the stunned houshi. Her trademark line. 'I am sorry if I hurt you with my starbolt, Miroku. Would you like to fight some more?'

Snickers drifted down from the Titans watching from above. Inuyasha was almost weeping with joy at the sight of Miroku laid low by yet another female.

'And this one you didn't even ask to bear your child……' he wheezed between manic guffaws. Kagome was smiling too, but she politely hid it behind a slender hand. Sango was carefully expressionless, which meant she was as amused as the hanyou.

Miroku promptly rectified the situation by asking Starfire to bear his child.

'Please, who is your offspring and why should I undress him or her?' Starfire looked more clueless than any of them had ever seen. In moments of stress, she still reverted to her eccentric style of speaking.

Miroku explained.

Starfire blushed, red clashing horribly with orange skin.

A batarang and a boomerang hit him almost simultaneously.

Robin and Sango looked about ready to pop.

'I'd like a rematch,' Miroku said, smiling again. He didn't actually have to suck her into the wind tunnel, but he could deal with those starbolts of hers with it, and that would give him an edge. Starfire sighed and faced him again, regretfully. He backed away from her. He didn't want to hurt her by mistake.

Starfire powered up a starbolt, hovering again.

Miroku untied his beads and stuck his hand out slightly to the side. 'Wind tunnel!'

There was no explosion of air. There was no sense of emptying. There was no pull of gravity from within the wind tunnel. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

The starbolt knocked him out almost immediately after.

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When he came to, the Titans were standing a respectful distance away. Sango and Kagome were holding him up, and Inuyasha was crouched in front of him. His arm was free from the glove and beads _– why was it free? – why weren't they dead? – _were_ they all dead?_

'The wind tunnel, Miroku,' Sango said, almost whispered. 'It's gone.'

'Gone?' Miroku pushed himself upright. There was no bruise. Apparently those starbolts didn't leave marks. He brought his palm around and stared at it. The void was gone, all right. Completely. He could see the lines on his palm again. He hadn't seen those in so very long. Health line, relationship line, lifeline…….lifeline. The hand grew blurry. Alarmed, he blinked, wondering if something else was appearing on his palm, and the blurring vanished. He felt two warm trailing touches on his cheeks.

Oh. He was crying.

He clutched his palm to his chest and bent his head to hide his weakness. There was no relief, not yet. It was too soon for that. He knew. But all there was was a lack of emotion he didn't know he ever had, a void in his heart like the one in his hand. For all his confidence, a part of him had simply fatalistically _known_ that he would never get rid of the wind tunnel, and the death of that part left him feeling empty.

Kagome and Sango both placed an arm around him, and Inuyasha snorted and said, 'Keh. I should have known. You're too stupid to die properly, monk.' Which, in Inuyasha-speak, translated to '_I'm happy you're alive, and I was worried about you_.'

Miroku smiled. He was so happy at this moment that he didn't even think of groping either of their rears. Alive, healthy, with his friends around him. What more could a man ask for?

_**Chapter four: Pause.**_

'You do realise what this means,' Kagome said. They were all back inside Titans' Tower and were sprawled out on the sofas, carpet, air, or whatever suited them. Raven had cast translation spells for everyone. Sesshoumaru had taken an immediate dislike to Beast Boy following the first dog-themed one-liner. He stood as far away from the grass stain as he could, arms folded and aloof. Despite the summer heat, he was still dressed in his flowing robes. His only concession had been to discard his moko-moko sama.

Robin assumed authority of the extended group as naturally as he did the Titans. Kagome could see why. He was a good leader – heavy-handed at times, and he had the reputation of being utterly tactless, but in comparison to Inuyasha, he was a diplomat. More importantly, he had the presence and confidence to command, and the brains to do it well.

'Naraku's dead,' Robin said. 'How else would the wind tunnel just vanish?'

Kagome raised an internal eyebrow. Miroku had told him that much? Interesting. He rarely trusted anyone with that knowledge. 'Yes,' she confirmed. 'He must have. Which means that we succeeded in killing him in the past, doesn't it?'

'Monk,' Inuyasha growled. 'Did you feel anything at all when Raven took us through time? Maybe that's when the wind tunnel vanished.'

'No, nothing, really,' Miroku said, frowning. He cradled his right hand in his lap, and constantly stroked it with his left. Kagome wondered whether he was even conscious that he was doing it. He was clearly in shock. Sango and Inuyasha both watched him covertly, worried even if they didn't show it. His best friends. Kagome knew she'd never be as close to Miroku as they were, but he was dear to her nonetheless. It was a testimony to their control that neither of them had lost it in the least; she was on the verge of tears herself. 'I was a little distracted at the time, so I probably wouldn't have noticed.'

'We all were,' Sango said with a rueful grin.

'So that means we killed him?' Inuyasha said, clenching his fist.

'In the past, probably,' Kagome said. 'But he's definitely dead, because why else would the curse lift?'

'But if he's dead,' she continued thoughtfully, 'Why don't we have the completed Shikon jewel with us?' She reached into the jar at her neck. The fragments glowed and sparkled, but they were still the same size as they had been when she left Sengoku Jidai.

'Unless someone else killed him.'

They pondered that for a while. Inuyasha, predictably, was the first to tire of the speculation. He dealt in facts, and if he didn't know for sure, he simply didn't consider it in his thought. It was an attitude that had carried him through some tough situations, simply because he went into fights with no assumptions. 'This is stupid!' he burst out, springing to his feet. 'What's the point of all this thinking? We won't know how Naraku dies until we go back to the past and live through the events! It's that simple! Why worry about it until we have to go back?'

'I think Inuyasha has a point,' Raven said quietly. 'We don't really know how the past unfolded. There's no point in thinking about it now. Although,' she said thoughtfully, 'there are a few……. Give me a while and I'll try to get you some information. I have some contacts that might be useful, though they're hard to track.'

'In the meantime, though, you do have something else to think of,' Robin added soberly. 'You don't know for sure that Naraku died in your time; he could have died anytime in the last five hundred years. If you take Miroku back………you could cause his wind tunnel to form again.'

Miroku looked up, his eyes widening slightly. For the self-controlled houshi, that was a telling sign of shock. He stood up hastily. 'I……I really must……I need to think.'

He walked away dizzily, selecting a door at random. Kagome moved to follow him, but Sango caught her arm firmly and sat her back down. 'Give him time,' she said softly.

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When Miroku wasn't back by lunchtime, they all went looking for him. Raven found him on the roof, her favourite spot. He was still staring at his hand, legs dangling over the edge of the tower. Beyond him, the sea sparkled and broke merrily.

'The shock of being alive when you didn't think you would be…..' she said, drifting down to join him. 'It won't ever really fade. But the fear and the pain, that will go.'

'What do you know about it,' he said harshly.

'More than you do,' she replied.

'I was this close to dying, Raven,' he said quietly, holding finger and thumb an inch apart. 'The wind tunnel wouldn't have lasted another month. Maybe less. I was quite reconciled to dying….and then…….'

Inuyasha came up behind them before the shocked empath could reply. 'Oi, monk,' he said in his rough voice. 'I thought you'd been kidnapped or something.' _I was wondering where you were_, Miroku translated. He smiled a little. The hanyou was the closest friend he'd ever had. Terrible at the soft stuff, and hardly a shoulder to cry on the best of days, but he'd have traded his life for Miroku's in a second, in that gruff annoyed way of his. However, saying that would have earned Miroku a punch in the head, so he wisely maintained silence.

'Kidnapped, Inuyasha? I hope you imagined it was a pretty girl at least.' He got up, dusting himself off by habit.

'Miroku, are you feeling unhappy?' Starfire said, flying up the side of the tower to meet them. 'I shall make my special dish of happiness for you!'

'Piece of advice, Miroku,' Raven mumbled. 'Not if you value your insides where they are. So not.'

'Ah,' he said smoothly, falling back into routine. 'It is true that I am in the depths of despair, dear Starfire. Would you make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to bear my child?'

'Miroku,' Raven and Inuyasha said warningly.

'Miroku,' Starfire said sweetly, 'Perhaps what you need is not the dish of happiness but a starbolt in the stomach. Would you like one?'

Miroku swallowed. _Memo to self: don't underestimate her._

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Lunch that day was almost completely silent at first. The food was delicious, but nobody enjoyed it, with the exception of Sesshoumaru, who dug into his meal with relish. It consisted almost entirely of chocolate and chips. He completely ignored the tension wracking everyone else, which only served to make it worse. Everyone was edging around Miroku, and their consideration made him so uncomfortable that he couldn't banter as he usually did. It became quieter and quieter. By the time they washed up, it was positively oppressive.

Unsurprisingly, it was Beast Boy who broke it. He looked hopefully at Miroku and Inuyasha. 'So…….you want to play Mega Monkeys XVII?'

'Keh!' Inuyasha said. 'Stupid games. Kagome's brother always plays them.' But he drifted over to the TV anyway. An evil smile curved Beast Boy's face, and his ears perked up for the first time that evening.

'What's Mega Monkeys XVII?' Miroku said curiously.

All hell broke loose.

Six hours later, Beast Boy, Inuyasha and Miroku were still playing. Their eyes were glassy with strain, and Kagome could hear the frying brain cells all the way across the room. They had finished with Mega Monkeys long ago and were on to the combat games. Sango had joined them at that point. Sango was playing well, and she and Inuyasha were beating the other two into the ground. 'Take that! And that!' Sango cried, not quite as loud as a battle cry but close. 'You will DIE!'

Inuyasha was growling with glee like he did in a battle, and Beast Boy and Miroku were grimly silent. The game was reaching epic levels of ridiculousness. Raven, Kagome and Sesshoumaru were watching with almost identical expressions of disgust. Robin had picked up a paper and was steadily ignoring the rising noise, and Cyborg had left long ago, annoyed that nobody was giving him a turn. Rin, who had taken a great liking to both Cyborg and the T-Car, followed him out.

'Tcheh!' Sesshoumaru snorted at last. 'Pathetic childishness!' And he left the room as regally as ever. That broke everybody up. Raven trailed off to the roof to meditate, Kagome went to Starfire's room and Robin, still immersed in the news, threw an absentminded 'keep the noise down' at the combatants and walked out muttering about Two-Face's latest stunt. Nobody heard him; nobody saw him go.

When Raven passed through the tower on the way to her bedroom, it was near nine at night. The noise had died away, but the blue and green light of the TV was still visible. And by the sounds of it, someone was still playing. Nine hours!

'You know, Beast Boy, you've got too few brain cells left to risk an–' Raven phased into the room and stopped dead, her jaw dropping. Sesshoumaru sprang guiltily away from the controls, landing all the way across the room. Raven could have laughed – was perilously close to it – but that would have offended the demon, and she did have to put up with him after all. Instead, she peered at the screen. Her eyebrow went up.

'That's quite a high score you have up there.'

Some indefinable tension left him.

'You know,' she said conversationally, 'if you didn't expect everyone to fear you or hate you, you might actually find people liking you.'

He shot her a look.

'Rin likes you,' Raven observed. Deliberately, she turned her back on him. If he wasn't so focused on being calm, he'd listen better. She sat down crosslegged in front of the TV. Looked back at him over her shoulder, the folds of her cloak hiding most of her expression from him. 'So, you gonna play or do you like the wall an awful lot?'

Slowly, much more slowly than he would normally have walked, he went over to the TV and sat beside her. She handed him a set of controls and turned the game back on. Neither spoke after that.

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Raven moved the bookshelf aside again the next morning. Again, he was awake, golden eyes watching her coolly, but this time his sword wasn't drawn and he was still stretched out on the couch. She noted that he still slept with Rin behind his back, though. She had a feeling that was automatic. 'Morning, Sesshoumaru,' she yawned as she floated to the bathroom…..and stopped and stared at the cornflower-blue sky outside. She'd overslept by at least an hour. Closer to two, perhaps. She shook her head. After all those years of laughing at Beast Boy for playing for hours, she'd finally done it herself. And liked it. Horrifying. The world really was coming to an end, and this time she didn't even have to open any portals. The very idea of the Azarathian playing video games was ludicrous enough that the universe might just collapse in a fit of disbelief.

The dark amusement of the thought was enough to levitate the bookshelf again, though she wasn't aware of it. The bookshelf floated closer and closer to the inuyoukai, who watched it with detached interest. Raven snickered at some thought, and Sesshoumaru's brow crunched as the bookshelf hovered right above him. It wouldn't even scratch him if it fell on him, but what piqued his curiosity was that he was sure that Raven didn't know what she was doing. Sure enough, when he cleared his throat pointedly, she leapt around, startled, and grimaced in dismay, returning the bookshelf to its proper place.

'Having trouble controlling your powers, h-Raven?' Sesshoumaru smirked, correcting himself. A promise was a promise, after all. Behind him, Rin stirred.

'It's none of your business,' she snapped.

'So defensive. Did I hit a sore point?' Rin was clambering all over him while trying to get off the couch. He let her, only wincing a little when she stepped firmly on his delicate ear. Throughout, he held Raven's eyes, an incredibly smug look on his face.

'It's terribly sad that you find satisfaction and self-esteem in making fun of others,' Raven told him unemotionally. 'What's the matter, afraid they'll be more than you are?'

Inuyasha's youkai face flashed before him, and Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed. He sat upright so quickly that Rin fell off the couch with a squeak. He caught her with his hand before she could hit the ground. 'Never presume to speak to me so,' he said coldly.

She nodded quietly, though he was certain she wasn't too afraid of him. 'And that's exactly how I felt a moment ago,' she said by way of explanation, and then vanished into the bathroom.

Sesshoumaru set Rin down, brow creased again in the solitude. She'd done it again – messed with his mind and left him puzzled and intrigued. It was strangely addictive, the feeling that Raven understood him. She barely knew him. How could she read him so well? That thought set off a chain reaction in his mind, and his head snapped up to stare at the bathroom door when he finally followed it through to the finish.

'Reading me,' he murmured almost inaudibly. 'She's an empath………' a surge of hot anger swelled in him. The corners of his eyes reddened for an instant before he forced the transformation back. He would take care of this one with a clear mind.

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He slammed the bathroom door open. She stood right in front of it, obviously about to come out. 'Wait,' she said calmly in that monotone voice of hers.

He snarled wordlessly and leapt at her. She wrapped him in a black barrier. He thrashed, trying to break it. She was straining to hold him, he saw.

'I warned you not to share my room,' she said, still calm, but urgent. Trying to get something across before he killed her. 'I have no control over whose mind I touch when I sleep. Being this close…….you were bound to register. I've been dreaming your memories, yes. Some of them.' He broke free of the barrier and she flinched but continued. 'The spell I'm anchoring for you makes the dreams worse. I'm sorry. I wish I couldn't read minds. But I can't help it.' She dropped her hands to her sides and waited. He was staring at her, face blank, body still, and while his aura was still flaring his emotions were subsiding into…..confusion? Why was he confused? What was he thinking of? 'I do have some boundaries, you know; I don't tell anyone what I see.'

'I will stay here,' he said coldly. 'I does not fear what you may tell others of him.'

'I had expected that,' she said seriously. If he had accepted, it would have surprised her. He was the kind who'd advertise his weakness to his worst enemy and rip him to shreds anyway. _It's Rin you're worried about, isn't it? If someone found out you cared for her. _A mild word. The girl was the object of every affection the youkai allowed himself to feel. Why, Raven didn't know. 'And I'm glad you didn't kill me.'

'Feh,' he said, crossing his arms. At that moment, he looked startlingly like his half-brother. 'If I had, the spell would have unraveled.'

'Yes,' she said evenly, letting nothing show. 'Yes, there is that, I suppose.'

He turned away.

'Friend Raven?' Starfire called. 'We are ready to leave!'

'Coming,' Raven called. They had agreed to tour Jump City today, and it was apparently time to leave. Sesshoumaru was already out of the room.

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When they came to the front room of the tower, everyone else was assembled except for Robin and Sango. Cyborg had elected to stay behind and watch the still-comatose Jinx.

'Where are they?' Inuyasha said for the nth time.

'For the last time, I have no idea!' Kagome snapped. 'Stop asking!'

They ran up to the others as Kagome said that. Both looked freshly showered. 'Training,' Robin said by way of excuse.

'Terrific,' Raven said. 'Finally, he's found someone as crazy about practice as he is.'

'Maybe he'll let us off the hook now,' Beast Boy said hopefully.

They wandered around Jump City all morning. Miroku and Rin were delighted by everything. Sango was a little more subdued, and Sesshoumaru downright quiet. He tried very hard to keep his stoic mask on, but his aura reflected a host of emotions that the empath could read easily. The lack of meditation that morning hadn't been good for Raven. Her powers were harder to control than they usually were.

Inuyasha had been worried that their group, with their odd looks, would stick out too much. Then he looked at the Titans and felt reassured. It wasn't possible to look much weirder than they did. For the first time, he didn't have to jam a cap on his head or wear shoes when he was in the future, and that was a definite relief. Jump City was warmer than Tokyo, and his feet sweated terribly in shoes. Not to mention the tears and rips his claws caused.

He glanced over at his brother. Sesshoumaru had left the moko-moko sama at the tower, along with the spiky breastplate, but the formal robes and sheathed swords were still with him. His eyes were taking everything in, and letting nothing out. How he could be so unemotional, Inuyasha didn't know. It wasn't as if all demons were incapable of feeling, but Sesshoumaru was unpredictable even for a demon. Probably the only thing he could be sure about Sesshoumaru was that he hated Inuyasha.

And Kagome doubted that, too. Keh.

They went to the mall, where Starfire and Kagome broke off from the rest, dragging Rin and a highly reluctant Sango with them. From the sound of it, they were trying to buy her a new wardrobe. A large one. Raven saw a bookstore and drifted off from the rest. To her surprise, Miroku and Sesshoumaru both followed once they saw where she was going. She shrugged and let them.

Which left Inuyasha, Robin and Beast Boy. They stared warily at each other for a second.

'Arcade?' The grass stain suggested.

'Let's,' Robin agreed.

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'Here,' Raven said to the cashier, levitating a huge pile of books onto the counter. The other two were right behind her. 'What did you buy?' Miroku said, leaning over her shoulder to see the books. Raven cringed. The houshi had no sense of personal space.

'Horror, fantasy, occult literature and history,' she said. As the cashier finished the bill, she picked up the packages with her power.

'Here. This one's for the two of you.'

They examined the books inside the packet she held out to them. Most were on history and science. All were in Japanese. 'An overview of world history, 1600-2000,' Sesshoumaru read out. 'A timeline of inventions. English for beginners. This is…useful.'

'Thank you, Raven,' Miroku said with his best bow. 'You care greatly for those who have done little yet to deserve it.'

Raven sniffed, amused by the difference between the two men who had just essentially said the same thing. 'Don't get too grateful. You're carrying this around the rest of today.' She tossed the bag to Sesshoumaru. He swatted it aside to Miroku.

'Hey!' the monk protested, but he took the bag anyway.

Raven's communicator crackled. She lifted it to her face. 'Raven,' Robin said crisply into the camera. 'There's some sort of disturbance a few blocks away. Looks like Plasmus.'

'Oh, gross…….' Raven said, remembering the slime the villain's body was made of and how badly it usually splattered. 'I'll be there. Three minutes.' She turned to the two men. 'Something's come up. I need to go.'

'We'll come with you,' Miroku said immediately. Sesshoumaru looked annoyed at being included in the statement, but not averse to joining her.

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'RAAHR!' Plasmus' garbled roar wasn't actually scaring anyone. His drippy toxic gloop, though, they all steered carefully around. Robin was throwing discs at Plasmus. They froze some of his tentacles, but more kept growing. The man/monster had already blasted a huge hole in a bank vault when they arrived, but he hadn't done much after that.

'Let me handle this,' Inuyasha said to Robin. 'Haven't had a good fight in weeks.'

'BWAAAHGRH!' the monster clarified as it rampaged over the square. And stopped short, faced by one highly unimpressed half-demon.

Inuyasha raised a dark eyebrow. 'You think that's scary?' he sneered. 'Get a day job. My grandmother was scarier than you!'

Sesshoumaru, who, unlike Inuyasha, had actually met their grandmother, fervently agreed with the statement. Silently, of course. He didn't bother to join in. The creature didn't look challenging at all, and even the fun of stealing Inuyasha's game wasn't worth it.

'GWAH?' Plasmus said questioningly.

'Gwah yourself! Iron Reaver Soul Stealer!' Inuyasha howled, streaking up in a blur to rip Plasmus apart with his bare hands. The Titans grimaced simultaneously. This wasn't going to be pretty.

Sure enough, Inuyasha's claws tore into Plasmus as if he were light as water. The monster almost flew apart with the force of his claws. His sleeping human form regained, the slime became limp and splattered everywhere. Prisoner 385901 was back.

'Peh!' Inuyasha spat. And spat again. His mouth had been open in a battle cry when he struck and he had expected Plasmus to be much tougher. The gloop was covering him now, and it was in his mouth and nose. He sneezed seven times rapidly and spat again. His face was screwed up into a comical grimace and he was dripping with slime. His ears were twitching. All in all, not a pretty sight. 'Peh! Peh, ptui, pthick!'

Sesshoumaru smirked. Just as well he hadn't fought, then. His half-brother was looking wildly funny at the moment. In fact, Kagome was laughing, and so were the others.

'Cheer up, guys! I'm here to make your day brighter!' Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow as a man in a black suit appeared before them.

'Dr. Light,' Robin said wearily. 'How many times do we have to stuff you away?'

'Jail doesn't hold anybody as bright as I am,' Dr Light said cheerfully. Then he saw Raven and his face fell slightly.

'Still afraid of the dark?' Raven said softly. He cringed.

'Come quietly or…….' She left the rest of the sentence unsaid, but the villain knew precisely what she was talking about. Raven created an illusion of red eyes above her own, letting her face sink into her hood until two glowing white and two red eyes were all he could see. She didn't notice the expression on the others' faces. Dr Light's arms shot up so fast they nearly caught fire. Raven nearly laughed at the sight. Robin quickly handcuffed him and peeled the chest area of the suit off, leaving him without powers.

'My, you're easy,' she said darkly.

'Raven?' Beast Boy approached her cautiously. 'You're……..not angry, are you?'

With a start, she realised that they didn't know it wasn't real. 'Don't worry,' she shrugged. 'It was an illusion.'

Beast Boy sagged with relief. 'I thought you'd……lost control……like the first time.'

Raven shook her head, keeping her façade in place. Grateful that the shapechanger, who was the closest thing she had to a best friend, was concerned. 'No, I'm fine.'

She didn't notice Sesshoumaru.

_**Chapter five: Nevermore.**_

They returned to Titans' Tower quite late in the evening. They'd eaten out, and most of them were about ready to drop in their tracks. When the T-Car pulled into the garage, there was a general move to leave. Amid the thank-yous and good-nights, Raven peeled away from the rest to go to her room and meditate. She needed to rather badly. Spending hours in huge crowds was mentally draining on her – the invasive emotions were hard to dismiss after a while. Several mugs of soothing tea and a couple hours' meditation seemed just the thing to restore her frayed nerves.

When she entered the room, turning on the soft pearl lighting, Sesshoumaru was trying to make Rin lie on the bed, though the child was showing no sign of slowing down. Damn that youkai speed – he'd beaten her through the tower even though she had phased. Why couldn't she have inherited that instead of her empathy? Oh, right. Different demon type.

He picked up a history book and settled down on an armchair to read. Raven sighed and began her familiar chant.

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Raven twitched. It was absolutely impossible to meditate like this. 'Azarath… Metrion… Zinthos… Azarath… Metrion… Zin– oh, would you stop that!' she snapped.

'Stop what?' The very picture of innocence. They should put him in a stained glass window. Or in the dictionary. What she left of him. He'd finished the book in about an hour and was now staring at her back. Feeling a pair of cool amber eyes boring into her spine was not the right way to feel calm, relaxed and in harmony with the universe. Rin running through her room was making it worse. The girl didn't know when to stop. She was apparently an insomniac. A hyperactive insomniac. And the six mega-bumper ice-cream sundaes that Starfire had treated her to had to help. It was worse than Beast Boy on a video-game binge.

'Stop staring at me. It's disturbing.'

'Why do you meditate?'

_Now where did that come from? _she wondered. Floated around to face him.

'It helps me control my emotions. If I feel too much, I affect my environment rather badly. I'm sure you've guessed by now.'

There was no response. So he had guessed. 'Why ask me a question just to see if I'll give you the real answer? You're not the only one who's not afraid of others, you know. _Lord _Sesshoumaru,' she added mockingly.

He was still staring at her with that weird intensity. It was unsettling, to say the least. He seemed deep in thought, as if he were trying to reconcile something.

'Your aura….' he said finally. 'It is familiar somehow. I've never smelt anyone like you, but I know you. And those eyes……'

It took all of Raven's control not to make a movement at those words. If Sesshoumaru connected her to Trigon, he would finish her immediately. Of that, she was sure, and the spell be damned. Her father was making enemies right and left, as always. Only this one had survived, thanks to Jinx.

Jinx………Raven sighed. The hexer was still unconscious. Even a healing trance shouldn't have lasted this long. She'd been down to the med room that morning, and the girl had been stretched out, floating above the bed gently, face set in a relaxed but uneasy pose. There was nothing from her……..as if something inside her had been displaced and was putting itself back together. It was more than that, of course, but Raven's mind had boggled at the idea of expressing the entirety of the _feeling_ of Jinx. That had been the best she could do. The prickle of magic that surrounded her kept triggering her own at odd intervals. It left her helpless, and she did not like helplessness.

Sighing again, Raven settled into the bed, not answering Sesshoumaru's question. He'd find out sooner or later……preferably much later. Years and years. Not much chance of that, though. The youkai was sharp. She forgot to pull the bookshelf between them.

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About two hours later, she woke up suddenly, feeling some sort of magic. Jinx, she decided, and turned over to sleep when she was jolted awake again by Sesshoumaru's smooth voice.

'Raven. Raven!' There was a note of panic in it that she had never heard before. She sat upright, pulling her eyelids apart, and stared at the youkai. His face was blasted wide open by something, expressions clear for the first time. Concern, fear, instinctive rage. His eyes were darker, redder, she noted, and shivered. 'I can't smell Rin anywhere.'

'What?' she said, still foggy with sleep. 'Smell what?'

'Five minutes ago, her smell vanished. I was asleep and I didn't see……. I've checked the whole tower.'

'Vanished…….' Her first thought was that Jinx had done something, but the hexer couldn't teleport. Not Red X either, kidnapping wasn't his style. So how………

Raven's eyes widened. 'No way,' she breathed, almost running to her dressing table. The Azarathian mirror was lying on the floor in front of it. Not where she'd left it at all. 'Not again, not that infernal mirror again!'

'Mirror?' Sesshoumaru said, reaching over to it. She swatted his hand away despite her knowledge that he hated being touched.

'If you touch it it's going to take you in too.'

'Is she in there?'

'I…..think so.' As she spoke, Raven felt a rush of anger. She shook with the need to control the sudden, irrational emotion, suppressed it with a severe effort. _Rage. Rage was with Rin? Not good. _Though it was much less embarrassing. When BB and Cyborg had gone into her mirror by mistake, they'd met Happy, and she'd scared the daylights out of Robin and Starfire by laughing uncontrollably. The memory was enough to make her blush on most days. 'I'll get her out.'

Raven activated the mirror. She didn't expect him to latch on to her hair as the mirror sucked her in. With a yelp of pain, she found herself inside Nevermore with the youkai by her side. Knowledge hurried up to her, adjusting her glasses. 'She's with Rage…..'

Raven whirled to face Sesshoumaru, still wincing from the pain as she massaged her tender scalp. 'I told you not to come here! Are you deaf?' At least she could act emotional here without backlash.

He ignored her completely, staring at Knowledge with fascination. 'You are her…….' He said, looking between her and Raven. 'But you have no smell……..'

'Of course she's me,' Raven snapped. 'We're in my mind, who did you expect to find here? You?'

He ignored that. 'In your mind? This mirror……….'

'Yes, it's a portal into a physical form of my mind. Happy now? –And I _don't_ smell! Knowledge. What's Rage doing? How did she get free?'

'She didn't. Rin went to her before I could intercept her.'

'Foolish child,' she breathed. 'Let's go.' Sesshoumaru fell into step behind her, the youkai silently acknowledging her supremacy in this place. That was surprising, but there was no time to dwell on it now.

The place they were in shifted twice, and they were in Rage's domain. Raven stalked through the bleak canyon-shaped domain as if he didn't exist. She resisted the urge to mutter to herself – and wondered why. Anything she said in here _was_ talking to herself, after all.

'Rage!' she called. 'Come here!'

The red-cloaked, four-eyed version of herself was suddenly there before them, snarling with fury at being summoned so easily. In one hand, she held Rin in a not-so-gentle grip by the scruff of her neck. The child was trembling with shock and fear.

'Sesshoumaru-sama!' she called in a higher voice than usual.

Raven could sense the inuyoukai behind her tense, and she thrust an arm in front of him before he could move. In this realm, Rage was far more powerful than any of them except Raven herself. And even the unified Raven found Rage a hard emotion to resist.

'Put her down, Rage,' Raven said, emotionless.

'Want to protect the little brat?' Rage sneered, shaking Rin slightly. 'How sweet of you. But why bother? Can't the big dog demon handle a little girl like me?'

Sesshoumaru was snarling behind her, and Rage in front of her. The similarity of the sound struck Raven forcibly.

'Why help him, Raaevennnn?' she drawled. 'Half-breed, worthless woman, pathetic……. he called all the words you hated, and you still help him. Tut, tut. I was hoping you'd kill him and you come to rescue his child instead?'

'I like her around, strange as that may be. Put her _down_, Rage!' Raven could feel her own anger, and she quelled it ruthlessly. 'Put her down, or I swear I'll lock you so deep in me even darkness will look bright.'

Rage grimaced. 'Now, now, no need to be nasty, is there? I was just having a bit of fun with her, that's all. Wouldn't want to hurt her. It's so rare that people want to visit me. It's not been too entertaining here these last few years, Raven.' A sly, malicious grin curved her mouth. Raven consciously unclenched her fist. 'The last visitors I had…..Beast Boy and Cyborg. Such boring non-entities. They did stand up to Trigon well, though, didn't they?'

Raven's eyes widened, suddenly realising where Rage was going with this.

'Yes,' she continued reminiscently, the malice still lurking in her voice. 'The easiest battle you ever had with him was when those two helped you. I must admit, I'd never considered unification before, and you did it – twice! Not bad at all. I still remember the look on their faces when you told them…….' She let go of Rin and took a step back. In a blur of motion, Sesshoumaru retrieved the girl.

'…….that Trigon was your father.'

Raven slumped. The youkai gasped in realisation. Rin looked blankly between them.

'Damn you,' Raven hissed. 'Can't leave well enough alone, can you?_ Father_? That abomination is no more my father than Slade!'

The eyes glowed bright crimson. 'Of course I can't leave well enough alone,' Rage said. 'I'm your connection to your power, after all. The more I grow, the more powerful you get. And what would Raven do to save all those poor helpless people if she left her anger behind?'

'Shut up. Shut up!' Raven could feel the anger in herself rising steadily and let it this time. 'I don't want to do this here, now.' She directed a blast of dark energy at her other self, an explosion of black that blinded them all. When it cleared, Rage was chained to the rocks, screaming in fury, and Raven was her usual unemotional self. She turned blank eyes to Sesshoumaru and Rin.

'Get out of here.' With a flick of her hand, she opened the portal out of the mirror. It sucked them out, leaving her alone.

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Sesshoumaru was deep in thought when he was dropped back into Raven's room. The first thing he did was sniff Rin's scent. She smelled fine, if frightened. Her memory of Raven's mind was already fading. He had always appreciated Rin's tactic of simply forgetting things she didn't want to remember. Considering his lifestyle, it was probably a good thing. Reassured, he told her to run along and find someone to play with and then dropped gracefully to the low couch, awaiting Raven's return.

So she was Trigon's pup, was she. Well. That was interesting. He wondered again whether to kill her. It wasn't necessary, he decided. If she had wanted him dead, she would simply have refused to cast the spell that rejoined his soul and his body. And she didn't seem overly fond of Trigon herself, and Jinx had told him that she had banished the demon once before.

He reflected on the one thing he hadn't told anyone.

_Sesshoumaru dodged another fire-creature and sliced two of its companions apart with Tenseiga. It hadn't taken him long to figure out that he was facing the undead; what was taking a little longer was figuring out how and why they were in his dreams. And who their master was. He had called himself Trigon. As he fought the fire-creatures – pitiful weaklings that died with a simple cut – his gaze flickered repeatedly to the giant red-bodied demon that controlled them. At last, he dispatched the army of minions and stood before the master. His height dwarfed Sesshoumaru by a hundred times. Briefly, the youkai considered transforming, but with no left arm, that was more trouble than it was worth. Besides, he'd only come up to the demon's thigh, if that, and that would be mildly embarrassing. _

_He was ready, beyond ready, to fight. But the last thing he had been expecting was a telepathic battle. Trigon's _presence_ suddenly filled his mind, trying to push Sesshoumaru's life-force out of his body. The youkai fought as hard as he could. His mind was reeling under the unexpected assault and the sheer power of it. A harsh cry forced itself out of his throat. His struggles were growing weaker. _

_A voice intruded itself upon their struggle, a discordant scrapy voice that called his name. Jaken. He was lightly touching the inuyoukai's shoulder, worried that he hadn't woken up at the sound of the toad's footsteps. The pressure grew greater and now he was being shaken hard by his panicked retainer, and Trigon was roaring in anger at being disturbed, and the serene Japanese dreamscape was rippling and shivering as if it were a reflection that had been broken, and then a surge of Trigon's power had curled through Sesshoumaru, striking at the toad's body, turning one of his two companions into stone. That surge of power gave Sesshoumaru the break, and the action gave him the strength, to resist and push the demon out of his body before jerking awake with a strangled scream to see a screaming Rin and a stone Jaken………he hadn't dared to close his eyes again until that first night in Raven's room, his first night in the future. _

The Azarathian came out of the mirror a while later, looking tired and ruffled and resigned. 'So now you know,' she said quietly.

He nodded. 'I already suspected.' She made a graceful gesture that indicated her assent.

'So what are you going to do about it?'

'Nothing,' Sesshoumaru said calmly. 'You are no threat to me.' By the way she stiffened, he knew she had misinterpreted his statement. It didn't matter. 'Should I change my opinion, I will act; but until then……..'

She waited for him to finish the sentence, but he didn't. He wasn't really sure how the sentence ended, either.


	2. Chapters 6 to 9

**_Chapter six: Quarrels._**

The nice thing about being suddenly granted a lease of life, Miroku quickly realised, was that people around him were a lot quicker to give him his way. To tell the truth, Miroku was feeling rather like a balloon with its strings cut – floaty and high. It was six days now since they'd arrived, and the feeling hadn't receded. There was the fear that the wind tunnel would come back, of course there was, and it was a deep fear, but compared to the certain death he had faced all his life, it was a minor thing. If there was one thing Miroku knew, it was how to control fear. This was trivial.

No, what was really bothering him was Starfire.

Miroku was a remarkably confident man, with few illusions about himself or the rest of the world. This inner clarity had allowed him to befriend men – and women – who were stronger or weaker, smarter or stupider, older or younger than he was without feeling remotely threatened by them. Sango, for one. The unapproachable taijiya could thrash him one-handed any day of the week; he'd never known men to be really interested in her romantically for that very reason, but the fact that she could kick him from Jump City to Tokyo and all along the Great Wall didn't bother him much when he talked to her. Kaede, whose miko powers rivaled his own; Kagome, who outstripped him in power even if she was exasperatingly bubble-headed and chirpily weird at times – he could accept that certain people were better than he was at certain things and that that didn't mean that he was of lesser worth.

Unfortunately, this inner clarity and maturity didn't extend as far as actually keeping his relationships free of his trademark pervertedness. It was his curse, though it had nothing to do with his hand, and compared to the women of Feudal Japan, Starfire showed a lot of skin. Just one look at those legs in that little purple skirt was enough to make his eyes cross. While Raven's outfit technically revealed more, he had a feeling that she would turn him inside out and jump on the remains if he even thought about touching her; his normally wandering eye somehow remained firmly fixed above her neck where Raven was concerned, and his normally wandering hand a secure half-foot from her. And as for touching Starfire……..hah. As if.

The first time he'd tried, Sango had nearly knocked his brains out of his head with Hiraikotsu, and after that, whenever he found Starfire alone, he was joined smoothly and immediately by either Robin or Sango, who both seemed to trust him exactly the same, which was not at all. It was deeply frustrating. It wasn't as if he had ever forced himself on anyone in the least, but the way they acted……

What was even more frustrating was that Starfire didn't notice. Flattery went over her head, grand romantic gestures were impossible in company and asking her to bear his child had been an absolute fiasco. It wasn't so much that he actually wanted her to bear his child or even marry him; he was just deadly curious about her and she did look good and she had _kissed_ him, hadn't she, so she had to be interested, right?

He had questioned Robin about the customs of the land with regard to romance. After the apoplectic fit, Robin explained shakily that he didn't have much of a social life, and asked why.

Miroku replied that he would like to date Starfire, as she was of marriageable age and therefore ready to explore relationships.

After choking some more over the marriageable part (despite Starfire's brief disastrous betrothal, Robin retained his original, good old 21st century ideas of marriage) he asked him how he knew about dating.

Miroku replied that Kagome was an excellent source of information about the future.

At this point, the conversation deteriorated rapidly.

'Oh yeah? The only woman for you, I suppose you'll call her next?'

'Actually….' Miroku began.

'You're such a pervert,' Robin said, restraining his language admirably. 'You proposed to a eleven-year-old once. You kissed a youkai. You made out with a woman in every other village you went to; you even asked Kagome and Sango to bear your child. You touch the behinds of random women and you ask anything in a skirt to bear your child. And now you're going for Starfire? Like hell.'

'How did you…….' Miroku said weakly.

'Oh, I know a lot more than I tell,' Robin said icily. 'Sango told me all about you. And if you do anything…….you hear, anything, to that girl, I'll have you in cuffs so fast you won't even know until the judge says "Twenty years", you get it?'

In retrospect, Miroku decided that Robin was probably the wrong one to ask, and he should have gone to Cyborg instead. Ah, the eagle eye of hindsight………….

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When Robin told Sango about the conversation he'd had with Miroku, she had mixed reactions.

She liked Miroku. He was strong, smart, charming and when he wasn't being offensively romantic, he had an easy wit that balanced her serious outlook well. He was one of the four people – if Kirara was counted as a person – who knew her well, and she trusted him with her life.

Sure, she'd crushed on him at first. But it had settled into something deeper, calmer, closer to recognition of some nameless bond. She was also quite sure that if she and Miroku married, she'd kill him within the year. She wasn't sure what Miroku actually thought of Starfire, but that something perverted was involved in it, she didn't doubt for a moment. Besides, why get interested when they would soon have to lea– Oh. Oh, right. The wind tunnel. If he went back, it might open again. So he was probably staying back, then. The thought pulled oddly at her. It was so natural to think of Miroku and the wind tunnel in the same breath, to assume that the six of them would travel together forever – except that Shippou and Kirara weren't here either. She was doing a lot of that forgetting thing, it seemed. It was just that life here – in the future, in the Tower – was addictive. They spent the days in Jump City or its nearby woods or just relaxing in the tower, reading, playing those video games with Beast Boy, watching TV, and in her case, training with Robin. That was very enjoyable.

For some reason, she found herself with Robin most of the time; maybe it was because they both enjoyed physical combat in a way none of the others did, except Inuyasha. That strange sense of recognition had persisted as the days went by. On the rare occasions when Sango was truly drawn to someone – as she had been to Kagome, Miroku, Kirara, even that baka Inuyasha – she never resisted the pull, and she rarely regretted it. And Robin was eerily like her. They had the same concentration on their job, the same………. actually, the same everything. From Starfire's stories, Robin was even more socially inept than Sango was. Learning from him was quite easy. She was as driven as he was, and expected as much from herself as he did.

Sango also developed a surprising friendship with Beast Boy. The shapechanger was fascinated by her stories of demons and their abilities, and spent hours listening to them. The first time she allowed him to touch Hiraikotsu, he'd immediately transformed into a wolf and smelled it all over before correctly identifying the last ten people who'd touched it by her description of their age and gender. Sango, amused, allowed him to keep it for a while. He became something of a demon expert in a week; as Robin remarked, if she could keep him away from the TV he might actually grow a brain with time.

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The next morning, the Event that they had all been dreading since their arrival at the Tower finally occurred. It began rather innocently, when Inuyasha wandered into the living room to find some potato chips. He was temporarily unsupervised, since Kagome had discovered that Starfire's room had a HUGE jacuzzi and promptly disappeared after picking up candles, a fluffy pink robe that belonged to Starfire and a romance novel stolen from Cyborg's room (and, man, what was up with that?). That was an hour and a half ago, and he was tired of waiting. (Maybe she'd died in there or something. She did have an unnatural attraction to baths. Maybe she had a water-youkai ancestor? ) His backup babysitter, Miroku, was curled up on the couch, snoring gently. Feeling uncharacteristically cheerful now that he was unattended, Inuyasha ruffled through the shelf in the kitchen, tossing aside the packets he didn't want. Just as he saw the garlic-flavoured chips on the top of the shelf, a longer arm that belonged to a taller youkai snatched it neatly away.

'Yo, stripy. Give that back,' Inuyasha demanded, turning around only to nearly bump into a white-clad chest. His brother smirked down at him.

'No chance, shorty.'

'I saw it first, flagpole!'

'Flagpole?' Sesshoumaru said, taken aback.

'Tall, thin, lots of ribbony things, very very _girly_,' Inuyasha explained in that slow careful tone used with idiots and telephone operators.

The smirk straightened immediately. Sesshoumaru hated being called a girl, and Inuyasha knew it.

'Take that back, shit-for-brains,' he snarled, stepping back and placing a hand on Toukijin's hilt. 'Or I'll take you apart.'

It was Inuyasha's turn to grin as he snatched the suddenly forgotten chips from the counter. He turned and fled with the spoils before his startled brother could react. 'Nyah-nyah-nyah! Gotcha, sister!' lingered in the air behind him.

By the time Sesshoumaru caught him, Inuyasha had already eaten the chips, stuffing them untidily into his mouth as he ran. As the youkai quivered with barely suppressed violence, he deliberately held out the very last piece of garlic-flavoured addiction and shoved it into his mouth.

A second later –

Titans' Tower shuddered to its foundations as the hanyou was punched through a triple-reinforced steel wall……. and into the bathroom where Kagome lay, nose buried in the romance novel. She squealed and ducked under the mountain of bubbles as the brothers gaped at her. Inuyasha was barely a foot away, horrified and…….oh, sweet heaven, was he _ogling_ her? They stared at each other for several seconds, both rather stunned and turning rapidly crimson. Kagome regained her wits first.

'Stop looking at me! Kyaaaa!' she shrieked, tugging the robe over the tub. Inuyasha scrambled backwards into the wall's remains, and his brother had the grace to look away, embarrassed. Kagome wrapped herself up in the sopping wet robe and emerged from the tub like Nemesis herself. Inuyasha was already well out of sit-shot. Sesshoumaru prudently transformed into a ball of light and left before the enraged miko could turn on him.

'Friend Kagome?' said Starfire as she peeped in at the door. 'Are you all right?'

'I'm going to kill them,' Kagome swore as she pulled on her pants with a vicious yank. 'I swear I'm going to kill them both.'

Starfire, who wasn't clueless enough to ignore _that,_ withdrew immediately.

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They met again outside the Tower. As Inuyasha ran for the relative safety of Jump City, his escape was cut off by a streak of white light that solidified into a furious (and chipless) taiyoukai.

The others arrived to see them both locked in battle, swords sparking with youki as they connected. As Kagome arrived, her hair still dripping, carrying her bow, Miroku nudged Sango and pointed discreetly. The taijiya took one look at the girl and began to grin, her eyebrows climbing. 'Oh, wow, this should be good…….'

'Go to hell, ugly!' Inuyasha screamed as Tetsusaiga held off another of Toukijin's strikes. The brothers locked gazes over their blades, Sesshoumaru suspended in midair as he forced his sword closer to Inuyasha.

Kagome snarled wordlessly (and much more impressively than Inuyasha) as she advanced towards them. 'You childish, immature, crabby, peevish IDIOTS!' she shrieked on a steadily rising inflection. They turned to stare at her. 'Put those swords away right now or I swear I'll purify the two of you!' An arrow, already drawn, trembled eagerly at the tip of her bow. 'Inuyasha, **_SIT BOY!_**'

Inuyasha crashed to the ground, his fang returning to the shabby, rusty form it normally had, nearly impaling him in the process. Sesshoumaru inched away from his brother, eyeing the arrow and the miko holding it with mild apprehension. From a few feet away, she was hardly likely to miss……..and if she hit him this time, she'd take out more than his armour.

'Apologise,' Kagome gritted. The air about her was filled with static as her aura extended around her. They both gulped.

'Miko, I– '

'Not to me, Sesshoumaru; not you. To Raven. You broke a promise.'

Sesshoumaru turned to Raven, eyes blank as ever. The empath struggled to hold in her giggles and maintained an even expression, though several bulbs in the Tower were later found to be inexplicably shattered. 'I apologise,' he said curtly before making his exit.

'And as for YOU!' Kagome said, turning to face Inuyasha, who was still making friends with the ground. 'What were you thinking, ogling me in the bathtub? Haven't you any shame?'

'And to think you only had to wait a week until you could go back to Sengoku Jidai and ogle them at the hot springs like we always do,' Miroku mourned with a malicious glint in his eyes. 'Inuyasha, Inuyasha, have you no patience?'

'Die, monk!'

'SIT!'

'Gaah!'

And Kagome marched away, full of righteous indignation to rival Starfire, her arrow returned to its quiver, leaving a smoking crater with a hanyou inside in her wake. She was stopped by Beast Boy, who smiled tentatively at her.

'Aah, Kagome………..'

She looked at him, waiting.

'Teach me how to do that and I'll love you forever. I mean, that rocked!'

Kagome smiled, performing one of her infamous U-turns. 'Yeah, that was fun, wasn't it?'

'She's scary when she's angry,' Robin murmured.

'Yeeeahh,' said Miroku with feeling.

**_Chapter seven: Change._**

Beast Boy had mixed feelings about the group that was staying with them over at the Tower. They were definitely the weirdest guests they'd had…….even Titans East was normal compared to this lot. He liked Kagome, Miroku and Sango, but he wasn't quite sure what to make of Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru was really weird.

Beast Boy had a good idea of weird. A small green boy who could turn into animals was not considered normal in most social circles. But honestly, the youkai was really barking mad……yeah, right, dog demon. Raven assured him that most high-level youkai had true forms and human forms, which led him to speculate what the Big Dog would be like. He'd already seen Raven's true form, and it was beyond creepy.

Which led him to wonder: if youkai had genuinely animal forms, would it be possible to assimilate a few of them? Sure, most of the animals he could copy were animals whose DNA he'd been injected with by his parents a long time ago, but surely he could add on to them? And Beast Boy still had their journals. Not to mention everything he'd learnt from them, buried somewhere deep in his head, where he'd pushed everything that had to do with his transformation.

Oh, yeah, he had a lot of studying to do……..

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Robin was truly puzzled. This was probably because he had more free time now. The HIVE was quiet, Slade was on vacation (he'd left a bouquet and a note on the door of the Tower, something he always did to announce his arrival or departure. All Robin could say about that was that Slade was crazy) and aside from their guests there was very little to actually do. So when he noticed that the perpetual bzz-crackle-voice of the TV was silent for much longer than usual, he went investigating. Beast Boy was nowhere to be found. In fact, nobody had seen him for two days. There were also a large number of missing plates and tofu, by which Robin assumed that he had taken food with him. When he went to Beast Boy's room, all he got was an absent-minded 'Go away,' from the other side of the green door. 'Are you all right in there?' he shouted, wondering if the grass stain was obsessing over Terra again.

'Fine, fine,' said Beast Boy testily. 'Now go away. I'm wo–' and he cut himself off, leaving Robin wondering just what he was doing. He couldn't have been saying 'working', could he? Or 'worrying'? His detective instincts fully roused, Robin activated the security cameras in the room. All they revealed was Beast Boy lying on his bed, with a steadily decreasing plate of fries and tofu, dipping and chewing while reading a book. Reading a book! But the camera wouldn't zoom in far enough to show him the words. It seemed to be some sort of official notebook. Beast Boy was looking uncharacteristically sober, almost…..serious? Before their run-in with the Doom Patrol, Robin would have called Beast Boy incapable of seriousness, but he was more inclined now to give the shapechanger the benefit of the doubt.

As Robin watched, bemused, Beast Boy picked up a notebook and scribbled in it for a few seconds. Then he leapt up and jumped on the bed, sending the last three fries flying. A tinny 'whoooo-yaaahh!' came through the camera.

'I rule I rule I rule!' Beast Boy chanted, turning elaborate somersaults. Then he ran to the door and yanked it open, racing outside. Robin hastily turned the camera off and went to meet him.

This really was the end of the world as he knew it.

He found Beast Boy in Cyborg's room, chattering excitedly at Cyborg, words spilling out of him faster than they ever had. Cyborg was nodding bemusedly, looking rather lost.

'What's going on?' Robin said finally. Beast Boy noticed his presence and promptly shooed him out of the door, feet dragging on the floor, absolutely red in the face with breathlessness and embarrassment.

Dumped unceremoniously outside the room, Robin ran a frustrated hand through his spikes. The mystery was getting to him. Really.

Three punching bags in the Tower's training room broke that evening.

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Beast Boy approached Sesshoumaru cautiously that evening during dinner. The youkai was eating potato chips and chocolate, which he had taken a liking to, for dinner, polishing off a pile of the snacks with profound indifference among the others, who were staring sideways at him over their macaroni. An odd combination of foods, but Beast Boy was nobody to talk.

The youkai looked up at him curiously when he sidled closer. It was really unfortunate, Beast Boy mused, that Sesshoumaru was completely devoid of any sense of humour. So he'd said 'Woof you like some', or 'Howl are you today?', or asked him whether he liked wearing striped suits. Or the other jokes, for that matter, the ones that had to do with frisbees, being fetch-ing, etc. Being funny wasn't a crime, was it? Oh, well. So he hadn't got that memo.

'Eheheh,' he chuckled nervously. Sesshoumaru put his Extra Crunchy Double-Chocolate Wafer Triple-Decker (which he refused to crunch, as it undermined his dignity) down and stared at the shapechanger, who seemed to be coughing madly. He raised an eyebrow in favour of speaking, since the marshmallows had glued his fang to his lip in a sweet web. What was he going to need to get rid of those things, his poison?

'I was wondering if I could take a blood sample of yours?' he whispered. This made Sesshoumaru choke as the Extra Crunchy Double-Chocolate Wafer Triple-Decker suddenly shot up his nostrils and down his trachea…….everywhere, in fact, except where it was supposed to go. Had he just been asked for blood!

Inuyasha sniggered as the ice-cool taiyoukai suddenly turned into what sounded like an old engine starting up. The affronted look Sesshoumaru sent his way did nothing to stop the bratty laugh. 'Inuyashaaa……' Kagome said, in that particular saccharine tone of voice she used just before she sat him with a vengeance, and he shut up immediately.

'It's for research,' Beast Boy explained hastily. He liked his guts exactly where they were, thank you very much. 'Youkai DNA. I can transform, you know.'

The other eyebrow went up. Beast Boy stuttered for a moment as the full glare of the Lord of the Western Lands was turned on him.

'Trafns……tnfar…..transform into other animals, that is. I was hoping your blood would

help me with some ideas I have about youkai transformation and their DNA.'

Robin, who didn't know that words like research and DNA and transformation existed in Beast Boy's vocabulary, whistled in appreciation. The other Titans shot him glares of varying intensity.

Sesshoumaru considered this. Then he considered some more. He chewed meditatively on salsa-flavoured potato chips while Beast Boy grew increasingly nervous. 'Hn,' he said finally. 'I will oblige you.'

Sesshoumaru stopped paying attention to the little green one as he stuttered out his thanks. He would never have given any of his blood to anyone in the past, but this Beast Boy was no spellcaster. Besides, chocolate made it hard to think.

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It was completely Kagome's fault, the youkai mused bitterly, his pointed ears twitching with irritation. His current benevolence, his attitude, his calmness, his lack of bloodlust. All the fault of that thrice-damned time-travelling miko. And that pesky Rin. And the chocolate.

During one of his numerous battles with Inuyasha, he had smelt a most curious smell from the strange underdressed girl's giant bag. He had wondered what it was at the time, but dismissed it because of a little distraction like not having his other arm cut off. Later, that strange enticing smell had haunted him like nothing ever had. He found himself trailing behind that fool half-brother of his when he had nothing else to do, expending a tremendous amount of energy to mask his scent, trying to catch a whiff of that delicious scent. He discovered the secret of the Bone Gobbling Well quickly, but the origin of the miko was of little interest to him and he never pursued the matter further.

His obsession would have continued forever, since he didn't want to stoop to thievery to discover what it was he was smelling; except that after a battle Rin came to him smelling of that smell; apparently she had made friends with the little kitsune. It was so overwhelmingly strong, so suffocatingly blissful. He could barely keep from grabbing the package when she brought it out – a strangely wrapped rectangular thing. She peeled one open and stuffed a bit in her mouth before deciding that she didn't like it. Displaying great restraint, he reached over slowly and took it from her unresisting fingers…………

And the rest, after a visit to an illusion-demon that created a substance that tasted exactly like the strange bittersweet food, was history.

In fact, the first thing he had thought once his body was returned to his soul in the future was: hmm, I wonder if they have any chocolate here. A random thought, no doubt, but he _had_ been rather shocked at the time. And then he discovered potato chips……and fries….. he really did owe Jinx one……….

The trouble was that chocolate changed his personality drastically. He just couldn't summon up the old gung-ho let's-kill-them-for-looking-at-me-sideways attitude. It had melted away with the special dark almond and pistachio tranquilliser. And the worst part was, he couldn't bring himself to care. He told himself that he'd eat chocolate on special occasions………and didn't tolerating his moron of a brother deserve a few treats?

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Inuyasha reached for the fries in the centre of the table, still focused on the macaroni ……and encountered something that felt distinctly un-fry-like. He looked at the fries, and then snatched his hand back from Sesshoumaru's wrist, disgusted. The youkai was looking ready to kill him.

'You promised,' Raven said quietly at the same time Kagome turned the creepy 'sit in 5-4-3-2-OSUWARI!' smile on him again. It was funny how they had such perfect instincts when it came to keeping the inu brothers apart.

Sesshoumaru subsided and bit savagely into one of the biscuits, wishing it was his baka brother's head. He wished he hadn't promised to keep his claws off the idiot at least sixteen times every minute he was around Inuyasha. But he had, and that was that.

Sesshoumaru didn't go so far as to speak, of course; he rarely spoke around that brother of his and his group.

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In the evening, Sesshoumaru usually went up to the roof or floated off the island to the woods near Jump City. He was unused to spending much time in the company of others, and Titans' Tower was full to spilling over right now. He left Rin alone more now, since she seemed to be quite happy to spend time with Cyborg or Beast Boy, whose antics seemed to amuse her.

When he reached the roof, however, he found almost the last person he would have expected waiting for him.

'Sesshoumaru,' Kagome said gravely. Acknowledging him as an equal. The girl had changed from the helpless and hyperactively happy child she had been when he first noticed her in his father's tomb. There was palpable power around her now, and a quiet confidence and self-worth that shone through when the girl allowed it to. Grudgingly, he had to accept that she had every right to address him as an equal after the numerous times she had helped defeat him.

'Miko,' he said in reply. 'You wish to talk to me?'

'Yes. About Rin. And Inuyasha.'

Sesshoumaru stiffened. Those were, in order, the two topics he wished least to discuss with anyone. Then again, he was curious to know what she wanted to know about them. She had surprised him a few times in the past, and he was not easy to surprise.

Sesshoumaru was perhaps more driven by curiosity than he cared to admit. Saving Rin, seeking Tetsusaiga, being Naraku's ally and then his sworn enemy, every major change in his life had begun with casual curiosity. For someone with as much power and as little responsibility as he had, it was the only way to counter the boredom of life. And something in him told him to answer, and as always, he obeyed his instincts.

'Did you ever really want to kill Inuyasha?'

Direct hit. Sesshoumaru winced. He knew she knew. He had given himself away a hundred times. 'Did I want to kill him? Of course I did. I still do.'

'But you wouldn't. You had plenty of opportunity, I know you did.'

'You are right, miko,' he said without feeling.

'I know that. What I want to know is: why?'

The word escaped without his quite intending to, slipping out on the exhale. 'Father.'

Kagome looked startled by that. Thoughtfully, she put her hand under her chin. 'Of course. He forbade you from killing Inuyasha, didn't he?'

'He was in no position to forbid me anything by the time that human toy of his had given birth to his son,' Sesshoumaru corrected her. 'We had…….disagreements……..we drifted apart…….by the time Izayoi became his mate, we met only rarely. It is not unusual in youkai families. However, with certain types of youkai, some emotions are rooted very strongly. In the lesser youkai, it is violence, hate, anger. In others, it is honour, power, pride, love, ambition, desire, a need to control, artistry. It depends on the type of youkai. Those base emotions……are almost impossible to change. ' Sesshoumaru hesitated. He sniffed the air cautiously. They were alone. 'With the inuyoukai, the simplest emotion is loyalty. The pack comes before everything.'

He saw the dawning in her eyes. She understood, then. About both of them.

'My blood – my power, that which makes me more than human – it acknowledges Inuyasha as pack. I can no more change it than I can breathe underwater. The effect is somewhat less because I hate him, and that emotion counteracts the pack-feel. If he died because of something unrelated to me, away from my presence, I would not feel compelled to intervene or avenge him.'

'But if he did………so that's why you came when he began to transform without Tetsusaiga. To see if your blood no longer accepted him. Only it did, even if he was mindless, and that was why you left again.'

He nodded. Turned away. What he had told her, nobody else knew. In fact, he wasn't sure why he'd told _her_.

Unfortunately, his blood immediately told him why.

'Inuyasha,' he mused. 'You love him, don't you.'

Kagome turned a brilliant shade of red, her cheeks matching his stripes. Still, she didn't flinch, returning the honesty he had shown her. 'Yes. Yes, I do.'

'And he loves you.' The red grew deeper. He idly wondered if it was actually possible for a human to explode with embarrassment. If it was, she was close.

'Ah……well……he didn't say……urk…'

'In that sense, you are already pack,' he continued. 'Should he strengthen the bond between you with a formal ceremony that would place you in my pack and under my protection. In a very real way, you are my…… what you would call family. Do you understand…….Kagome?' He looked away, at the stars twinkling above him. The wind caressed his hair gently, and he tilted his head back to let it reach his throat better. She was gazing at him with a sort of numb shock.

Well, there was no point in thinking about it. He had openly acknowledged that she was pack, and that was a commitment in itself. To her and his fool brother both. Whether she understood the implications or not was immaterial. And the first attribute of pack was honesty. The second was……..

'Sesshoumaru.' He looked back down at her. 'Thank you.'

She was such a tiny thing, really. It was a miracle she'd survived so long in Sengoku Jidai. She would be dead now if Inuyasha hadn't protected her. He'd protected her before he even knew her. Sesshoumaru snorted mentally. Maybe his brother wasn't as ignorant of the inuyoukai instincts as he'd first thought if he could defend his little group so well.

He nodded in response to her thanks. To his surprise, she stuck out a hand and said brightly, 'So. Friends, then?'

He stared at the hand as he would at a strange and possibly poisonous insect. That little hand – taking it would signify too many changes in his life. But he'd fought so long and so fiercely against his instincts, and had succumbed again in Rin. And that had been worth it. Maybe this would be worth it too. Slowly, he reached out and took it, taking care not to dig his claws into her hand. His brother had chosen well.

'I still hate Inuyasha,' he said as he dropped her hand.

'Of course.'

'I might not kill him, but I'll still take him apart every chance I get.'

'Mm-hm. And I'll be right there beside him, fighting you.'

'And if you get in the way I won't guarantee your safety either.'

'I didn't expect you to.'

'As long as you understand that.' Why did he feel he was making excuses?

'It's crystal.' And Kagome looked as if she did understand. 'I have friends who can't get along, you know,' she said cheerfully, a chuckle escaping her as she thought of Inuyasha and Kouga. 'It's not really too difficult to handle.' She thought for a long moment. 'He doesn't really hate you, you know.'

Sesshoumaru simply looked at her, waiting. If there was one thing he could rely on, it was the miko's love of chatter. It was safe to assume that she'd talk continuously all through her life and probably after her death as well.

'I think he's just bitter and angry that you never accepted him. It's just like with Kikyou.' A shadow passed over her face. 'I don't know if he still loves her or not, but he doesn't hate her. It's not easy for him to truly hate, despite appearances.'

She waited for a response. He gave none. 'If…you were to…….'

'Rest assured, miko, that I have excellent reasons to be Inuyasha's enemy.' His voice was far below freezing again. 'His feelings on this matter are irrelevant.'

And before she could even think of asking him why, he transformed into his energy form and zipped off the roof of the tower.

Kagome sighed. _And I thought Inuyasha was stubborn………_

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When she went downstairs, Robin was there, waiting.

'Where's-'

'He's on the beach,' the Boy Wonder interrupted.

'Wh–'

'After he saw you with Sesshoumaru on the roof.'

'You really have to stop doing that,' she said. 'It's a little scary.'

'Sorry.'

She thought for a moment. 'Is he sulking?'

'If his version of sulking is scratching his head, pouting, crossing his arms and "keh"ing every other second, yes he is.'

'Ah. I'll go talk to him.'

Inuyasha was sitting on a rock in the twilight, his eyes resolutely turned away even though his ears flicked towards her quick footsteps.

'Hey Inuyasha,' she said tentatively. There was no response. So this was going to be one of those nights.

'If this is about Sesshoumaru–'

'Of COURSE it's about him!' Inuyasha burst out, getting in her face. 'Kagome, he tried to kill me over a sword! He's a vicious killer, have you forgotten that!'

'Inuyasha, are you…….' sigh. There was simply no delicate way to say this. 'If you're actually jealous of Sesshoumaru, you don't have to be.'

He began to sputter indignantly, too furious for words. Before he could gather himself enough to begin bawling her out, Kagome held up a hand, forestalling him.

'I said, you don't have to be. I just wanted to ask him something, that's all, and then he left. There is absolutely – absolutely,' she stressed, 'nothing like that, okay.'

'What did you want to talk about?' Inuyasha asked, suspicious.

'Oh……..just……..things,' Kagome said, turning crimson immediately.

'Yeah? What things?' he sounded angry. Could he have sensed her blush?

'Just…..about……'

'WHAT THINGS, WENCH!'

'He gave us his blessing,' Kagome replied, quailing before his roar. Then she realised what she'd said and her eyes went very wide and her face even redder. 'I can't believe you forced that out of me!'

Inuyasha's mouth opened and closed exactly like a fish before he whirled away from her, staring blindly out at the gentle sea. She stared at the ground, wondering if it really would swallow her up if she wanted it bad enough.

'…blessing?' Inuyasha whispered finally. It was a tone she had never heard from him before, and it made Kagome look up, startled, at his back. 'He….damn……damn.'

'Inuyasha, if you try to pick a fight with him…….'

'Pick a fight?' That strange tone hadn't faded, and there was an odd light in his bright golden eyes. 'No, no, I won't pick any fights.'

And before she could begin to fathom the expression on his face as he turned around, he sat down weakly on the rock and covered his eyes. It was so staggeringly unlike him that she knelt before him, truly alarmed. Pried his hands away to reveal the oddest mix of emotions; fear, hope, anger, wonder, disbelief, dawning realisation.

'Wait a minute. Why would he think we….'

Kagome blushed even harder. But now that she'd embarrassed herself this far, it wasn't impossibly hard to look up into his eyes and tell him.

He grabbed her into a hug. It was as awkward as ever, because he didn't really know where to put his arms when he hugged anyone because he'd been hugged so little himself and it was a little too tight and she was running out of breath rapidly and her head was swimming with the seesawing emotions of the last twenty minutes, but Kagome didn't mind at all.

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Upstairs in Titans' Tower, the communications room burst into cheers and applause. Sango and Miroku were holding each others' forearms and jumping up and down in sheer glee, and Starfire was clapping madly, almost up to the ceiling with bubbling joy. Cyborg was wolf-whistling, grinning broadly. Robin was smiling. Only Raven looked as blank as ever. She got up and went to the door, muttering 'Infantile,' under her breath. Once she was out of the damage zone, she threw her head back and laughed heartily, pulling most of the wiring in the corridor out in a flare of energy.

'Well, that's a relief,' Sango beamed. 'They're so dense, I thought they'd take forever.'

'Ooh, look, they're KISS-sing,' said Beast Boy, who had endured one of Cyborg's elated back-thumps. The first one he had delivered with his non-human arm had knocked most of the breath and all the laughter out of him, but he was smiling now, if weakly. Everyone crowded around the screen, and the noise level went up dramatically.

'I must say, Robin,' Miroku commented as he stared, 'This was a much better idea than spying on them behind bushes. They don't blush and jump away from each other, and you get to be as noisy as you want.'

A smirk tugged at the Titan's lips. 'Learn from the masters, Miroku.' There was a chorus of disappointed 'Awww's as the necking ended and they settled down, and Robin reached over and tapped a few buttons. 'And here's the best part. The rewind and record option.'

Miroku grinned evilly. 'Can I have one of those when I leave?'

And Robin mirrored him.

_**Chapter eight: Past and Present. **_

'Oi, monk,' Inuyasha said, plonking down next to Miroku, who was stretched out on the sofa reading a book. Unlike Rin and Sango, who had both taken to modern clothing very quickly, Miroku and Inuyasha still wore their Sengoku Jidai outfits.

Miroku looked up and sighed. Inuyasha was sporting the irritable pout that he favoured when he was about to broach a topic he was uncomfortable with. His ears were twitching, he was picking at his scalp with one claw and if he had been the type he would have paced.

'Yes, Inuyasha?'

'Are you coming back with us or not?' he blurted outright.

He wasn't sure, that was the truth. On the one hand, there was his life to consider, and the future seemed like a good place for a guy with a brain. On the other, there was Naraku, possible vengeance and his friends. It was a hellish choice, and nine days after being faced with it, Miroku was no closer to the answer.

'I……don't know, Inuyasha,' he said, folding the book away and sitting up next to the fidgety hanyou. 'I honestly don't know. There's no guarantee I'll live to see Naraku dead, after all. He could have died years after the wind tunnel ripped.' After all, that wouldn't take too long, he added to himself. 'But everything I know is in the past. Is it worth the gamble? What if I were essential to killing Naraku, and remaining in the future helped him survive somehow? I don't know what to do, and it's ripping me apart. I'm hoping that if I keep from choosing long enough, someone else might make it for me.'

'Yeah, well.' Inuyasha looked even more uncomfortable. 'I-if you want to stay behind…….I'll understand.'

'No you wouldn't,' Miroku countered. 'It wouldn't even occur to you to run from a fight. I'm not that strong – physically or mentally.'

'I haven't lived for years with a death curse on me either,' Inuyasha remarked. 'Maybe you're right, maybe I wouldn't stay here. But right for me isn't right for you. I don't think it's running away.'

Which was rather unusually understanding of the hanyou. Unexpectedly, horridly, Miroku felt his eyes begin to tear up. They'd done that at odd intervals the last week, and while he'd been able to keep the worst episodes hidden, there was no way Inuyasha would miss the scent of salt at this distance.

'You're a guy, don't cry,' Inuyasha said gruffly. 'Damn, you're such a wimp.'

That stopped the tears immediately.

'At least I'm not a jealous moron who can't even tell when a girl's got feelings for him.'

Clunk! Instant bruise. Miroku rubbed his head while Inuyasha's veins popped. But the remark had done the trick. Suddenly their friendship was back to normal.

'You're so understanding, Inuyasha,' Miroku said, sweetly. Too sweetly. Inuyasha shot him a suspicious look. 'That's what makes everybody around you love you, you know. Your understanding and caring nature.'

Inuyasha twitched. There was nothing he hated more than being complimented and Miroku knew it.

'You're so generous,' he added, his silky voice purring the way it did when he was saying something particularly outrageous. 'And kind.'

'Stop it,' Inuyasha growled ominously, ears flicking wildly; Miroku grinned evilly.

'A brave and reliable friend– '

'Who's going to bash your face in _right now_.' His eyes were disappearing into the shadow of his bangs. Which was usually when Miroku gave up. His masochistic streak was restricted to humans. Inuyasha hit rather hard when he was really mad. Leaning back against the sofa's plush cushions, he sighed in comfort and changed the topic.

'So, did you find out what happened with Beast Boy and the blood sample?'

'Yeah. I was actually there; he'd wanted some from me too.' Inuyasha's eyes crinkled in amusement. 'The runt couldn't actually cut that jerk's skin with the needle, so Sesshoumaru just made his hands do the glowy thing and sliced his wrist apart himself and bled into the sample. I thought BB was going to be sick. The runt called Cy to give him medical treatment. He shot him one of those Looks and showed him his wrist, and obviously it was already healed. I really thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head then.'

'He's really quite strange.'

'Not as strange as Starfire.'

Oh, yes, Miroku thought. Not half as strange as the alien. Her kiss had been stunning – not as stunning as her starbolts, he thought wryly, but memorable nonetheless. The first girl who kissed him the moment she met him, and all she wanted was his Japanese. He really was losing his touch. If he'd ever had it.

'So you like her, huh. Well, it's no big deal. You'll foul up, she'll slap you, end of story.'

'Oi!' Miroku said indignantly.

'That's what's happened every time before. For a lech, you really have a lot of woman problems.'

'I'll ask her out just as soon as you tell us what happened out on that rock last night.'

Inuyasha glared. Silence fell. Miroku picked up his book again. A while later, Inuyasha kicked his foot by way of starting the conversation again. 'Beast Boy. What's he want the samples for, anyway?'

'Beasts me,' said Miroku and continued to read.

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'Friday night Friday night! Hey Rae! Come on out!' Beast Boy sang as he pounded cheerfully on her heavy door. He wouldn't have dared to do that a few years ago, but Raven had changed a lot in the years since she had vanquished Trigon.

Inside her room, Raven groaned. 'Oh, please, grow up.'

BB grinned, falling back into the familiar routine. 'Rae, come on,' he whined. 'Stankball isn't stankball without you. Think of all the dirty laundry! What would it do without your arraesting presence? You're breaking its heart. Any moment now, it's going to write its suicide note and call the guy who runs the laundromat…….'

'Let it,' she said heartlessly.

'What a nasty thing to say! I'm shocked! –don't worry, stankie-baby, she didn't mean it. No she didn't…….no she didn't. Mama loves you, yes she does,' he cooed to the smelly ball of clothing. Despite herself, Raven giggled, then winced as her two-faced statue flew into bits for the nth time. Sighing, she resolved to put it back together later. Stankball Fridays were fun, but they required a lot of repair work afterwards.

'Raven! Raven! O Rae of light, raediant one!'

Raven reflected that Beast Boy was a lot less fun before he discovered the English language. Some of his puns were actually educated now.

'Join the raest of us!'

'Shut up, you fool. I'm coming.' No real heat in her voice. He would have been surprised if there had been. Raven slammed the door open, wearing her oldest and tattiest cloak, her hands, already glowing with magic, wrapped around her laundry.

Cyborg and Beast Boy stood there, each holding a large ball of dirty laundry. Raven shaped them into balls and knotted them with her power. Miroku, Kagome, Rin and Sango were there too, looking morbidly curious and grossed out at the same time. Sango was wearing a pair of overalls with a brown top. As always, she carried Hiraikotsu. Rin was in a cute summer dress. Miroku was still in his houshi robes.

'The rules of the game are very simple,' Beast Boy said, grinning maniacally at the thought of new victims. 'If you get hit with the stankball…….throw. If you see one coming at you……duck. If you can't take the smell…….you lose!'

'So Inuyasha's already lost?' Miroku chuckled.

'Well, he did pass out when Beast Boy brought his wad into the room….' Kagome noted.

'All right,' BB said. 'The game starts in 5….4….3….2….oof!'

Raven plucked his wad of laundry out of his hands and hit him in the face with it. Beast Boy gagged briefly as the laundry wrapped around his sensitive nose before recovering and chucking it at Miroku. He ducked swiftly, and the ball fell into Kagome's hands. She made a curious 'Urk!' sound and threw it back at the grass stain. Meanwhile, Cyborg's wad hit the crouching Miroku full-on, while Raven's wad hit Rin, who swatted it aside to land on Miroku as well. The monk yelped under the sudden barrage of smell, then gathered both of them up and looked at Sango. The taijiya backed away. He threw.

'Hiraikotsu!'

And the stankballs were deflected in all directions. Raven caught one with her powers and threw it around the boomerang. And then the game really started.

Battle raged over the living room, the hallways, the little niches that only Beast Boy knew about, the repair tunnels, the bedrooms (Robin's was sealed tightly, and he and Starfire were both locked up in the med bay with Jinx. It was the only safe place to be, or so they said) and the roof.

Raven chased Cyborg and Kagome up the stairs. They were all giggling madly. Raven had managed to create a barrage of tiny stankballs and they were hitting the miko and the metalman from every direction. Kagome raced up the last flight just as the door to the roof was opened from the other side. Startled, Raven lost her concentration and the balls flew wildly at the intruder, connecting and flying apart to land with a wet thump on the floor. Utter silence fell as Sesshoumaru picked one of Cyborg's rag-cloths off his perfectly immobile face with two fingers, his long white hair falling forward into his face, hiding his features as he examined the missile. Delicately, almost, he held it as his hand glowed brilliantly, radiating poison. The cloth hissed quietly as it disintegrated. A final drop of poison fell from his index finger to the floor, eating through it slowly as he stared at Raven very very evenly. She stared up at him, shocked. For the first time, she smelled disturbed by his expression, his actions, and he wondered why. Finally, Sesshoumaru spoke. No trace of emotion in his voice.

'Never do that again.'

Raven didn't reply. She was staring at his hand, fascinated, lost in some memory. His brow creased ever so faintly as a sound escaped her throat, so low that anyone with less keen ears would have missed it. She turned and ran – no, bolted – down the stairs, phasing as she went. Puzzled, he stared after her.

'Malchior,' Cyborg breathed. 'Shit. Shit. Raven…….' And he ran after her.

'What was that about?' He inquired. Kagome looked just as confused as he felt. She shrugged. 'Hn,' he said and went downstairs, sweeping past the miko as if she didn't exist. He ignored her annoyed huff. He wasn't going to turn nice all of a sudden just because she was near-pack. And if she expected him to, he could rest assured that Inuyasha was rubbing off on her after all.

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When Sesshoumaru got to Raven's room, the door was locked. Very locked. There was even a magical shield on the door, glowering darkly at him, or so it seemed. He snorted quietly; as if that would keep him out! He kicked the door open, surprised at the lack of resistance, and barged into the room…………and promptly choked, doubling over, as the combined stink of every perfume, deodorant, air-freshener, potpourri and incense Raven kept in her room punched him in the nose. She'd……she'd booby-trapped him! Infuriating wench!

'I thought you might try that,' she remarked from the bed through the barrier she had placed around herself. She sounded amused, but her voice quivered slightly, and her eyes were puffy. She really was upset. 'How do you like it in here now?'

Sesshoumaru pinched his nose as his eyes watered and felt for the door with his free hand and staggered out of the room. So that was what she'd been blocking...the smell. As he leaned against the door in an embarrassing display of weakness, he heard her voice call out 'And stay out for two hours!'

He turned the corner and nearly bumped into Beast Boy, who instantly turned a little greener at the smell wafting off him. Before the little shapechanger could move, he shot out a scarlet-striped hand and caught him solidly by the scruff of his hand.

'Tell me,' he said evenly. 'Just who is this……..Melkhiore?'

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It was one o' clock in the morning of the thirteenth day since the Inu gang had come to Jump City, and Higurashi Kagome was having a nightmare. This was not unusual. She had them fairly often. This one, though, didn't hinge on theorem, algebra, astrophysics or other such demons. In fact, it wasn't anything like a nightmare, except that the voice…… calling her name, again and again, desperate, telling her to wake up, wake UP NOW KAGOME…….the voice was her enemy's…..the voice was Naraku's.

Kagome bolted upright, sweating, her hands over her face, nearly screaming, disturbing Sango, who was lying on the other side of the bed. The taijiya looked at her with sleep-blurred eyes. Kagome looked……eerily calm, as if she were too frightened for the rest of her face to register it. But her eyes……

'K...Kagome?' Sango said. Starfire woke up and looked at them both, concerned.

The miko – because that was who she was, the miko – looked at the two girls, that set determined expression never changing. 'Miroku…..' she breathed. Then she was off the bed and out the door before they even realised it, racing for Robin's room.

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Even before he was pulled out of slumber, Miroku knew. The familiar ripping, burning sensation in his palm, his right hand in excruciating pain…………

Snapping to full alert, his mind going from 0 to 120 in less than a second, he turned his palm upwards instinctively before he realised that most of the living quarters were above them. He changed his mind and directed it out the window just as the wind tunnel flared into unlife on his hand again. This time, he could see it happen, and that was infinitely worse than the first time when he'd been waiting, chanting, eyes closed.

With his left hand, Miroku scrabbled for the cloth that he kept by his bedside. Robin was crying out, and Miroku shouted for him to hold on to something; he thought Robin heard, but he wasn't sure. The beads were around his neck, and he thanked his stars for that as he sought them while bracing himself and letting the air rip scream. At least he hadn't killed anyone. A bright flare of pink signaled the raising of a barrier, and suddenly the wind tunnel was easier to control as the rest of the room was blocked out. He finally finally found the cloth and wound the ensorcelled beads around his fingers with the deftness of long practice. The howling wind subsided instantly, and Miroku curled in on himself, on the hard floor where he was now kneeling, his hand tucked safely into himself.

Kagome, Sango, Robin, Starfire, gathered around him.

'Miroku,' Kagome said softly……..what was she doing here, anyway?

'Well,' he said with a desperate attempt at humour, 'I feel hole again. And how did you get here, Kagome-sama?'

Starfire made a curious soft sound like a sob.

If he stayed on the comforting floor another moment, he would shatter. So Miroku stood up, shakily, forcing the bitter fear back and gathering every bit of vicious self-control he'd ever had. They were uncomfortably close to him, and he wanted to push them away, out of range. His left hand stayed clamped across his right.

'So,' he said, and then said nothing, because that was all there was, no thought, no quick connection of ideas; even his agile mind was numbed.

There was a long silence. All three girls looked seconds away from bursting into tears. Robin looked grim, and Miroku was blank as he tried to settle his stomach.

The crackle of the communicator cut it short, and they all started as Cyborg's voice came through. 'Robin?'

'Yeah?' the Titan said, activating the speaker. 'Listen, Cy, something's just–'

'I think you need to get here. Immediately. Raven's already on her way.' Cyborg sounded serious. 'Jinx just opened her eyes.'

'What?' said Robin, already halfway into his uniform.

'That's not all. Robin…….she's…….got those symbols on her.'

**_Chapter Nine: The Jinx._**

Inuyasha was sleeping in Cyborg's room, sitting against the wall as usual, when the smell hit his keen nose. It was unmistakable.

'Naraku……..' he hissed, coming instantly to his feet. He drew the Tetsusaiga and followed the scent. It seemed to be coming from the room with the medicine-smells where that Jinx girl was being kept. He burst into the room, and found……..well, Cyborg and Jinx. Raven and Sesshoumaru came in the other side at about the same time.

Jinx was suspended above the bed as she had been for the last eight days. Her eyes were open now, though, and her mouth moved soundlessly as she stared straight at the ceiling. Glowing symbols in a language Inuyasha didn't recognise covered her, glowing through her skin, illuminating her from within.

'That smell,' Inuyasha said, amber eyes darting all over the room, seeking, his ears twitching. 'Where are you, Naraku!'

'Ignorant fool,' Sesshoumaru said coldly. 'It's the girl who smells like him.'

And she did, he realised. He went up to her and sniffed. She smelled strange…..like what she had before, and like Naraku. And some other scent, an acrid sulfuric stench that he associated with fire and lava. As his nose twitched, he sensed Kagome and the others enter as well.

'Trigon……..?' Sesshoumaru murmured, too softly for anyone else but the sharp-eared hanyou to hear. 'She smells like Trigon. And Raven. She didn't, before.'

'Why the hell would she smell like Raven?' Inuyasha said loudly. Every head in the room swung towards him. Raven looked faintly embarrassed, Cyborg incredulous and Sesshoumaru……..well, he just looked faintly disgusted. 'And who's this Trigon guy?'

'Why would you know what Trigon smells like?' Raven was looking suspicious, and Sesshoumaru looked like a walking "Oops".

'You _met_ him?' she continued, and now he looked really uncomfortable. 'And you didn't tell me you did?'

'And why would you smell like this Trigon guy anyway?' Inuyasha demanded. From what he'd heard, Trigon was the Titans' most powerful enemy.

'They don't know he's your father?' Cyborg said unwisely. Raven _glowered _at him.

'It's not the sort of thing she advertises, Cy!' Beast Boy glared.

Inuyasha nearly gave himself whiplash when his head swiveled to Raven. 'You're his _daughter_? I don't get it. How come you're not on his side?'

'Fool. She was the one who vanquished him earlier.'

He did give himself whiplash when he met Sesshoumaru's cool amber eyes. 'Wait a minute. _You_ knew?'

'You know?' Robin and BB said at the same time.

'Where did you meet Trigon?' Raven said again.

'Hn. Of course I did.' The youkai sniffed at the air once more.

'Sesshoumaru,' Raven said with an edge to her voice, outlined in crackling black.

'Japan,' the youkai tossed over his shoulder at her. 'Once, about two months before I came here. In a dream. He tried to take my body. I survived,' he added simply. The crackling faded from Raven's body, but her eyes were still white. She said a few words, the cadence and sound unfamiliar, and at the end a flare of her black aura shot out from her hands and surrounded Sesshoumaru, whose back was still turned. He tensed imperceptibly, and Inuyasha clearly saw his hand twitch automatically to his sword, but then he relaxed and simply waited until the magic unwound itself and stopped flowing between him and the empath.

'What was that?' Sesshoumaru said. He could have been enquiring after the weekend's movie schedule for all the emotion in his voice.

'A spell. Designed to detect Trigon's mind-control techniques.' _Very nice movie on Saturday night, will you bring the popcorn?_

'You're his daughter and you have the audacity to check me for his influence?' _Caramel?_

'You think I don't cast it on myself every day?' she retorted. _No, butter._

Silenced, Inuyasha noted. He was still getting over the shock of Sesshoumaru's reaction to the unexpected spell. Why hadn't he reacted? It wasn't as if he had any sensitivity to spells or that kind of magic, the non-purifying kind, so he could tell if Raven meant no harm. Youkai rarely had that ability.

Sesshoumaru being nice. Sesshoumaru providing explanations on request (okay, threat, but still). This was becoming very weird.

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'The symbols are the ones that appeared on my body,' Raven reported to the others. She had locked herself and Starfire in with the catatonic Jinx for a while and when she emerged, she looked grim. 'The same. Only there's something else, too. There's a strange sort of mark on her back. It looks…..like a spider, actually. And I don't recognise it.'

'It looks like this, you mean?' Miroku said, his shielded hand flying across a paper. When he finished, he held the drawing up for everyone to see.

'Yeah, that's it,' she said. 'How did you know?'

'Naraku's mark,' Miroku said simply. He was completely calm, in direct contrast to the other Inu gang, who were visibly distressed.

'But how did she……'

'Don't you get it?' Miroku sounded weary, as if he had always known, as if he had never hoped. 'It's Naraku. Trigon took Naraku's body over. Then, once the takeover was complete, I guess Trigon took Naraku's body to his own dimension. That's why he died, that's why the wind tunnel vanished. And now they're back here, in this time, and the wind tunnel's reappeared.'

'So why does that girl have Naraku's symbol then? She another of his spawn?' Inuyasha was perilously close to taking a swing at the comatose hexer.

'Well, since Trigon is inside Naraku now, she would take on some of his attributes. Including the mark, it seems.'

'Huh. I get it now,' Robin sounded annoyed with himself, as he always did when he wasn't the first to get the answer. 'Jinx isn't a portal like Raven was. It's more like…she holds Trigon's DNA in her, so that he can reconstruct himself from her.'

'So she won't survive his entry here, is what you're saying,' Cyborg said. The metalman was paler than normal, and Robin felt a little ashamed of himself. Cy's……thing……for Jinx was common knowledge, and he was talking about her death as if she were a piece of furniture. 'No, Cy, she won't. Not like Raven did.'

'So we kick his butt before he even tries.' Cyborg steeled himself – no pun intended – and the infamous determined grin spread across his features. 'We did it once before, right? We'll do it again.'

'I agree,' Robin said quickly. 'But first we have to know what we're up against.'

'I'll leave you to that,' Raven said in her dry voice. 'I've got some spells to look up. Somebody keep an eye on her.' She drifted to the door, only to stop at Kagome's voice.

'Wait. There's one other thing.' Everyone glanced at the miko, who had remained quiet until now. 'Just before the wind tunnel opened……. I dreamt someone was telling me to wake up. It sounded like Naraku.'

'Naraku? You mean Trigon, then.' Raven's fist clenched, and she cast the spell again. Again, there was no reaction. 'That's strange. There's no trace of him.'

'I know. I think it was Naraku – the real Naraku.'

'Why would he want to contact you?' Inuyasha looked disgusted. 'Who knows what that sick freak's got in mind.'

Kagome looked like she wanted to say something, but decided not to.

'Miroku.' Raven's voice floated through the open door. 'I may need an extra pair of eyes with the spellbooks.'

Miroku joined her, though he looked a little puzzled at being called so specifically.

Feeling rather aimless now that Raven was gone, the rest looked around the room.

'So. What do we do now?' Cyborg said tentatively.

'First: we need to know everything about Naraku. Second: they need to know everything about Trigon. Something might come from that. After that, we'll see what we know and take it from there.' As always, Robin was already making plans. Plans, consequences, strategy…..he understood them, they were methodical and orderly and that was territory he knew. Demons and half-demons and spells were profoundly _dis_orderly, and the sooner he could quantify them the better.

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'Not that I'm displeased by your singling me out, Raven,' Miroku said, 'but why me? Unless,' and that lecherous flirty grin spread on his face, 'you have finally succumbed to my manly charms and– '

'In case you haven't noticed, this is me being unimpressed.'

He looked hurt as Raven cut him off. She didn't even bother to look at him as she floated books of all shapes and sizes to the table where they were standing. They were in a room full of books, both Robin's criminal files and Raven's excess reading material. He reached his hand around her, but she turned in his half-embrace and fixed her large lavender eyes rather knowingly on him. The electric light fritzed madly across the hall. Reluctantly, Miroku withdrew his hand. It wasn't so much a real need to feel her as much as sheer curiosity at being denied. The forbidden fruit and all that. But he did want to survive the next three minutes…..

'I'm glad you've grown a brain. And why exactly are you fooling with me when it's obvious you've a thing for Starfire?'

Miroku sighed. Did _everyone_ know? 'How did you find out?'

'Please. The way you stare at her? I'd have to be blind.'

'She does have pretty eyes………'

'Funny. I'd swear it wasn't her eyes you were looking at. And in answer to your question, I called you because…..' Raven looked up at him. He was struck again by how short she actually was. She seemed taller most of the time, or was it just the floating? 'You mean you don't know?'

'Know what?'

Raven huffed, flipping through a tome half her height while sliding another across the table to him. 'Your magic, you idiot.'

He let the "idiot" pass and focused on the rest. 'Magic?'

'Yes, magic. You have some In form, rather like Jinx's, actually. Attack-based, and moderately powerful. So you didn't know after all.'

'You mean my spiritual powers? I always thought they were mine because I'm a houshi.'

'With your lifestyle? Dream on. Girls, booze, lying, cheating…….yep, you're a regular saint and all. I can just see why you'd have holy powers.'

Did _everyone_ know?– floated through his mind again. Sango and Kagome really did take sadistic pleasure in telling everyone about his, ahem, exploits. He mulled over that in silence while he read the book. It was a journal of some sort, and the style was……. eccentric, at best, and raving mad the rest of the time. 'What am I looking for?'

'Barriers, mind control, banishing, dealing with incorporeal beings. Mark the passages and we'll go through them later.'

A small glow lit up his face at that. Finally something he could deal with.

'How upset are you about the wind tunnel?' she said emotionlessly.

'A fair bit,' Miroku said, matching her blank expression. 'I'm trying quite hard not to think about it. I'm actually happy it opened now and not later, when…..'

'When you were reconciled to its absence? I know the feeling.'

A raised eyebrow.

'Trigon said he would fulfil the prophecy on my birthday. He waited until the last few minutes to declare himself, the twisted…….' Raven trailed off.

'Ah. I see.' And he did. This Trigon was not unlike Naraku, it seemed. They continued working in silence. Miroku found that most of the books contained a translation incantation somewhere, making them easy to read. Some were even in Japanese. The spells in them ranged from light magic to dark, trivial to important, and he couldn't help thinking that if Raven knew even half of these, it was a wise decision not to cross her.

'And what about you?' he said a while later.

'Mwha?' she said, nose buried in a musty old book.

'Your…..romantic interest.'

All the lamps in the room switched off and on again erratically. Miroku smirked. 'Ah, I seem to have hit a nerve. So you've noticed the dog staring at you?'

'Inuyasha doesn't stare at me. For one thing, he's too wrapped up in Kagome and even if he did stare, she'd sit him to the centre of the earth, and he's quite aware of it.'

'I wasn't talking about him, and you know it.'

Raven sighed. This was a conversation she really didn't want to have. The entire world, it seemed, relished speculating on her love life – even if she had none. The tabloids divided themselves rather evenly between Robin and Beast Boy, and now the houshi was putting Sesshoumaru in the race as well. The whole thing was simply ridiculous. Robin was like a brother to her, and she wouldn't have dreamed of making a move on him even after his crush on Starfire faded. She sometimes doubted if it ever had. And Beast Boy was a good friend – hell, her best friend – but the mere thought of going out on his idea of a date (which would probably entail an arcade, an amusement park or a similar crowded and relentlessly, demonically cheerful place, and tofu at the end) was enough to make her gag.

'Sesshoumaru stares at everyone. If you ask me, he needs spectacles. Do you realise he can probably hear us at this distance?'

'I'm not bothered. Are you?' Well, he has a hide like a battleship.

'I don't see why we're discussing this,' Raven said as she flipped another page as if she'd much rather be flipping something else. It was an unsubtle dismissal and Miroku didn't push it.

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'Hn,' Sesshoumaru said unexpectedly in the living room a couple of floors away.

Robin looked up at the youkai, who'd been stoically silent until a moment ago. 'Er, did you say something?'

'No,' the youkai said, staring expressionlessly beyond them. 'No, I said nothing at all.'

He turned and left the room.

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It was about an hour away from dawn when Raven closed the book she was reading with a loud snap. The houshi, who had dozed off on his book after a sleepless night and six hours of reading, woke with a start. Miroku rubbed his sleep-fogged eyes and stared blearily at the Azarathian beside him, who looked fresh as a daisy; he ran a tired hand through his messy hair and thought uncharitable thoughts.

'Found something, I presume?'

'In spades.' Before he could wonder what spades had to do with it, she elaborated. 'I know how he did it now.'

_**First Interlude: Takeover.**_

_Struggle. Thrust and repulsion. Attack and defense. That defined his existence now. His body was out of his control, most of the time, and his mind was flung wide open for Trigon to ruffle through at his leisure, as if it were a scroll left abandoned in the mud. All he could do was snatch the occasional thought or feeling (not that he'd allowed himself too many of those before) from the chaos that trapped him; make some desperate effort to regain control and be repulsed, be shattered. And then the presence again, clawing at him like the claws of the white-haired inu-hanyou he saw in his memory-fragments; defense then, holding on to the edge out of sheer stubbornness until his captor tired of the game and left him alone in his prison again. What facts he caught, he held closely to himself, and he ran through them again and again until they made some sort of twisted sense. Whether they were real or not, he didn't know and didn't care. _

_Naraku. That was his name, he was quite sure of that, he remembered her calling him that – but she called him something else too, and that was lost. Hanyou. Bandit. Kikyou. Kikyou. Kagura, wind elemental. He'd freed her just before Trigon – there was another name – took him. He would have killed her – was going to kill her – but then he realised that the presence wanted him to do it, whispered the suggestion as it ate away at his mind, absorbing him one youkai at a time. He freed her, seething with rage that he was being controlled, and told her to run. Kanna, dead, her mirror shattered. _

_Who was he again? Naraku. Naraku. He said the name over and over, until it burned into him. The him that was left. Puppet-master turned puppet. Absorber absorbed. If his sense of humour was working right now, it would have made him laugh a long long time. _

_She had disliked that laugh, and she had provoked it often. Kikyou. That name was the first thing Naraku had retained; he had fought for it so fiercely and insanely that even Trigon had given up. An odd kind of respect had touched the other demon then, and he had made no attempt to take that thought away from him. And Naraku hated himself for accepting that charity, and hated Trigon more for making him accept it. _

_Something else brushed past him occasionally, another trapped soul. He knew it was a woman, and he didn't question the knowledge. She was young, and in severe pain, she was fighting as hard as he was and losing just as inevitably, and that was all he knew. _

_Hate, rage, memory. Traces of pain and sorrow. _

_The Shikon no Tama. The jewel. That was linked to Kikyou, of course, and so it was Naraku's reason for living. Kikyou and the Shikon jewel. Hate and desire. _

_The miko from the well. Kikyou's reincarnation. The holder of the last few shards of the Shikon jewel. The power of the jewel was with Trigon now, but the knowledge of how to use it was Naraku's. He waited. As a thief, he had learned stealth; as Naraku, he had learned patience. They served him well now._

_The opportunity he was expecting came rather suddenly. The demon possessing him – not a youkai, some other strange spirit as unnatural as he himself was – his attention wandered as he cast a spell that opened a portal. In that space of time, Naraku acted. A brief flare of power, and suddenly he was in the reincarnation's mind, Kagome was it? He tried to tell her something, anything (was he even sure what he wanted to say? Naraku doubted it) but all he could do was make her wake up from her dream as he tried to make her acknowledge his presence. _

_He had made surprising allies before. Of course, he had discarded them immediately once their work was done, but that was immaterial after all. Nobody thrived without daring, and he was extremely daring. He was no fool either. He was dead, or as good as. Even if the demon left his body, he would kill Naraku in the process. And Trigon had more than enough power to crush him like a bug if he tried anything open. The game was played out, and he had lost. But he still possessed a few crucial bits of information. _

_And damn if he wasn't going to take Trigon with him. _

A/N: okay, that's four more chapters up. I have another six chapters, plus an epilogue to go. Thanks to my reviewers (two in two days)!


	3. The first attack

**_Chapter ten: The First Attack._**

'The words of the spell don't truly translate. It's an ancient dialect, and a very subtle one at that; there wasn't even a translation-spell. But from what it says, we're on the right track. Trigon used a divider spell to separate himself from his body just before I killed him.'

'He became a ghost?' Miroku said tiredly.

'More like an astral spirit. Not alive, but certainly not dead. And he retained his powers. The spell would have allowed that. The disadvantage of the divider spell is that the spirit needs to transfer into another body immediately. There was nobody there who could have withstood his life-force without their body shattering; even mine wouldn't have worked, since I wasn't old enough. So I presume he threw himself back in time to find a demon there.'

'And succeeded, because he sent the prophecy to Jinx and Sesshoumaru from the future. But she went back to the past too, and brought him here, but he found Naraku instead….this is giving me a headache.'

'It's not exactly grade-school math, is it.'

'But if the prophecy's from the future, then doesn't that mean he'll succeed no matter what we do?'

Raven thought about that. 'It might,' she acknowledged frankly. 'But I'm not going to stop trying to defeat him, no matter what.'

A memory. Starfire, young and naïve, but every bit as determined as she was now. _'Our friendship has already changed Warp's past. I believe it can also change our future.'_ So maybe that was true and maybe not, but Raven had learnt never to give up.

'That's very interesting,' Sesshoumaru commented from his place just behind Raven's shoulder. Her chair overbalanced and she fell backwards, her cloak falling open to expose an expanse of leg as the back of her head hit the floor. He didn't catch her, though she knew he could have. Damn him.

'Stop-doing-that-' she rasped as she flailed her legs, trying to get up. As always, he made no reply. Miroku coughed and averted his gaze from her with uncharacteristic politeness. Sesshoumaru gazed pointedly at the bare leg scrabbling for a second before she caught herself on the floor and stood up.

'Can't you wear more clothes?'

'I don't like having things clothes to my skin.'

He didn't know exactly what she was saying, but he did recognise the tone. Sesshoumaru sniffed loudly and stepped back.

'I presume you heard the entire conversation?' Raven said.

He didn't like the implication that he was eavesdropping. Then again, he had been, so there was no point in getting all offended about it. He didn't reply, though. That would have implied that he thought Ra-the research interesting enough to follow it from her room across the tower, and he didn't want to do that. As if she were reading his thoughts, Raven twitched a lip sideways and shook her head sadly.

'Denial is not a river in Egypt.'

And what was that supposed to mean? Hn. He played the conversation back in his head, and there wasn't anything to suggest……..denial? He never denied anything! He was completely honest with himself!

_Rin, _his stupid chattery conscience suggested, smirking. _Inuyasha, Kagome, Jaken, Naraku, Raven, the prophecy, your father, Izayoi………want more?_

Okay, so he denied someth…………..Naraku? What was he denying about Naraku?

His conscience rolled around, laughing madly.

'Earth to Sesshoumaru. Earth to Sesshoumaru. Do you read me?'

He snapped out of whatever bizarre alternate universe he was trapped in and stared at Raven. She was floating, which meant that he couldn't stare down his nose at her. What a pity. Instead, he ignored her steadily. She folded her arms in the classic you-ignorant-male-will-you-listen? pose; at the same time, something tickled at the back of his nose, something familiar which shouldn't have been there.

He glanced out of the closed window. The sky was still half-dark, but there was an ominous reddish hint to it that did not belong. And his hackles were prickling.

'Youki,' he whispered, too lightly for anyone else on the planet to hear him. He took a deep breath, setting aside the well-memorised spice-and-flowers scent that was Raven and focusing on the scents he didn't recognise. At the same time, his sixth sense twinged in that familiar way.

'Naraku's youkai,' he said so they could hear, walking calmly over to the window and looking outside. The horde of flying lesser youkai were approaching the tower at a tremendous speed in an airborne flood.

Before the others could even voice their questions, he heard the _sching _of the transformed Tetsusaiga and the scent of the Wind Scar assaulted his nose.

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Inuyasha had long discovered that nobody else in the Tower could be trusted to stay away when he and Kagome were having some alone time (what Sango called 'romantic interaction', Miroku called 'sucking face' and everybody else called nothing at all if they wanted their heads to stay attached). One time, they were on the couch, and Cyborg had let out an interested 'Boo-yah!' when they parted and cordially offered comments on their technique. Kagome's face had erupted with red, and Inuyasha had sulked for nearly an hour because he wasn't allowed to hit him. The time when Rin had interrupted them was even worse. The child had been innocently questioning, and though they'd discovered some interesting facts about Sesshoumaru's love life (or lack of it since that green-haired cat-youkai clan leader had moved north), the embarrassment was just not worth it. Taking it into one of their bedrooms was just not the done thing, so after the fourth day, they had found a secluded corner of beach.

He pulled away from Kagome's hands, which were currently absorbed in finding that spot on the base of his ear that made him kick his leg out, flowing upright and turning instinctively to place himself between Kagome and the strange scent.

'Inuyasha?' she questioned. He was growling lightly, and it was unfriendly. She knew all his growls, and this was one he reserved for……

'Naraku and Trigon,' he said flatly, unsheathing Tetsusaiga. The transformed sword was comforting in his hands, and while the time and place were unlike anything he had fought in before, the enemies he saw were those he knew. Everything was familiar again. A wicked grin curved his mouth. Oh, yes, very familiar.

The first few youkai died even before the others arrived. Foolishly, they had tried to attack low, trying to catch Kagome, no doubt. The Wind Scar sprayed water to an impressive height as they simply fell apart. He leapt into the air, thrilling in the freedom of almost-flying as he clawed three more youkai in a single stroke. They turned to dust.

'Hiraikotsu!' The boomerang sliced through more youkai, but there were others behind them. Well, the cavalry had arrived anyway.

'Oi, jerk!' he shouted over his shoulder, not needing to look to know Sesshoumaru was standing on the beach, watching. 'What's the matter, chicken?'

And suddenly Sesshoumaru was in front of him as if he had only waited for the invitation, dodging around Tetsusaiga and killing the youkai Inuyasha had been aiming for. He took the time to smirk condescendingly at his younger brother before he blurred on to the next one, vanishing from the hanyou's sight for a second before reappearing a second later with his glowing claws already run through the snake youkai he had targeted. Inuyasha swore and leapt up, their innate rivalry flaring up again as he batted away a youkai that was trying to bite his head off. Another Wind Scar, aimed at a youkai directly between them. Sesshoumaru twisted neatly away in midair as the youkai between them was destroyed, his energy whip snaking around a larger youkai to balance the move. Inuyasha knew he'd dodge. The son-of-a-demon had too sharp a nose to be hit with the Wind Scar. Almost idly, Sesshoumaru punched him on the back of the head with his elbow as his whip struck at a youkai who was aiming for Inuyasha's back. 'Jerk,' Inuyasha mumbled as he punched clean through a youkai with much more force than it really needed.

Kagome watched, awed, as the inu brothers decimated the youkai. They complemented each other perfectly: Inuyasha's sheer strength, his fury and his open delight in battle; Sesshoumaru's grace, his deliberate ferocity and icy composure. They moved backwards and forwards, attacking and defending. It was like watching a sports team in action…… though they had no past experience, they seemed to fight in choreographed precision, moving around each other as if they had practiced for years. Iron Reaver Soul Stealer, move sideways, strike upwards, energy whip lashing just past Inuyasha, spin, Wind Scar as Sesshoumaru moved sideways again to dodge it, taking out the youkai behind him as he faced another direction again.

Apart from picking apart the occasional youkai that broke through the brothers, the others didn't really do much but watch them. Sango sent Hiraikotsu out a couple of times, and Miroku swore fluently when he saw a bunch of saimyoushou lookalikes taunting him with its presence, but that was about all they did.

Kagome could still hear Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru swearing at each other, but the hate was gone, from Inuyasha anyway. She knew the hanyou better than anyone. Fighting beside his brother was a thrill, and he was enjoying it too much to hate him – at least while it lasted. And even Sesshoumaru was grudgingly pleased by the way his brother was fighting. She shook her head in a way that any other woman would have recognised immediately. _Stubborn idiot males. _

The fight was over quickly, considering how many youkai had come after them. Inuyasha sheathed his sword as Sesshoumaru's hand stopped glowing, both standing ankle-deep in the waves. He hadn't used Toukijin. Neither were breathing too hard, but the battle-light was still in their eyes as they grinned identical, slightly fanged, feral grins at each other. Kagome could pinpoint the exact moment when they realised who the other was. Inuyasha's mouth straightened suddenly, and Sesshoumaru became even stiffer than normal. They turned away from each other simultaneously, huffing, and she giggled quietly at how alike they were before she made for Inuyasha.

Unfortunately, by the time she covered the twenty feet that separated them……

Arrogant cross of arms across chest. 'Hah. I got three more than you did!'

Smirk. 'Ignorant fool. I took two more. Don't you even know how to count?'

Instant flare of anger. 'Well enough to know you've half the brains you should have!'

Baring of fangs. 'Why you….(snarl) (sching)'

'Sit boy!'

Thump.

'Sesshoumaru……'

'Yes, miko, I do remember.'

'Since when are you and the jerk all chummy? Doesn't he already have one little girl simpering over him?'

'Sit sit _sit_ _sit siiit_!'

'Gah! KAGOMEEE!'

The sound of the waves rushing into a sizable crater in the rocky beach. Inuyasha sputtered angrily as he rose from his Inuyasha-shaped hole, fire-rat robe dripping. Sesshoumaru averted his face so that they wouldn't see his smirk, but not before he caught sight of a remarkably similar smirk on the miko's face. She winked cheerfully at him. Well, so this whole pack thing had some advantages after all. Ganging up on Inuyasha was a definite plus.

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'So those were youkai,' Beast Boy said contemplatively as they watched Inuyasha bawl at Kagome. He held a matchbox in one hand, and was flipping it from side to side. It rattled dully as if there were something inside it. He was obviously waiting for someone to ask the inevitable question. Robin sighed and surrendered.

'What's in the box?'

BB grinned widely and opened it. Inside lay a very dead saimyoushou. 'Any bets that Batman would know someone who can concoct a vaccine for this thing?'

'How did you get this?' Miroku exclaimed, grabbing the poison-insect and examining it.

'I went hummingbird.'

'If I were immune to the saimyoushou……..' Miroku's eyes gleamed. 'Perfect.'

'Beast Boy, that was really……..awesome.' Raven had the matchbox now.

'I'm actually quite buzzed about it.' He ducked as the box flew at his head.

'I'm sleep-deprived, tea-less and I haven't meditated in a day and a half. Do you really want to die?'

'And we move on to the next thing,' Beast Boy said hastily. 'I suppose you've all been terribly curious about what I've been doing the last few days.'

They all looked bored.

'Aww, come on now,' he whined. 'Doesn't anybody want to know?'

'Will it stop you if we say no?'

'Raee-ven!'

'Okay, okay. Tell us.'

Beast Boy grinned widely at them and then transformed……into a large dog. In fact, he came up to Raven's shoulder. He had a mean set of teeth and weird fluffy fur on his back. He transformed to human form, a little slower than he normally did.

'Oo-kay, so I need to work on the size a bit…….still, neat, huh? Huh?'

'Well, it's hard to judge, unless we can see what you adapted it from,' Raven suggested with an evil smile.

'I will not take on his true form at the request of weaklings like you,' the youkai said, suddenly standing next to them – behind Raven, which made her yelp yet again. He seemed to enjoy doing that, Beast Boy noted.

'Sesshoumaru?' Raven was itching with curiosity, and if playing sweet-little-girl got her what she wanted……..the youkai arched an eyebrow at her as if he were reading her thoughts, and shook his head. 'Pretty please?' she said, trying her hardest to look cute. 'I'll be so grateful. I'll even……..three boxes of Ferrero Rocher.'

Something amused flickered in Sesshoumaru's eyes for a second. 'Out of the question.'

'Four and a pound of soft-centred mint chocolates.'

'Hn.'

'Five boxes, the mints and three bumper packs of salsa and tortillas.'

Sniff!

'Come on, that's my pocket-money for two months!'

Eyebrow twitch. Robin intervened, curious. 'I'm sure we could finance it from the Justice League account. We could write it up as……..money paid for information.'

'Yes!' Beast Boy cheered. 'New deal. All you can carry at the chocolate shop downtown that I showed you, in addition to whatever Raven promised.'

Sesshoumaru nodded. And transformed.

Raven goggled.

The Dog – because Raven simply couldn't think of it as a dog – towered over them. It was far more impressive than her own demon form, though less eerie. Full-red eyes, white, white fur, strong muscles, and the crescent moon on his forehead seemed darker than ever. He also had a very long, very fluffy tail, and she restrained the positively suicidal urge to touch it. Sesshoumaru's demon form was……..gorgeous. Powerful, terrifying, but perhaps that was why it was so……….

'Sesshoumaru-samaaaaaa!' Rin squealed from behind them. 'Ohh, you look so cute!'

Raven could swear she saw the Dog cringe with embarrasment at those words. Inuyasha began to snicker. Rin, oblivious, darted up to the youkai with enviable confidence and grabbed a handful of his fur, stroking. 'Rin thinks you are as fluffy as your mokomoko-sama!' Inuyasha was howling, and everyone else was trying to restrain themselves with varying degrees of success. Sesshoumaru regained his human form rather quickly and blurred out of sight. Odd, Raven thought. Sesshoumaru was so pretty, almost feminine; his youkai form was as……well, male……as it was possible to be. The two balanced each other rather well.

Raven started. She had been so absorbed in Sesshoumaru that she'd almost forgotten why he had been asked to transform in the first place. It was as bad as the first time she'd met Aqualad. Except that Aqualad's superiority complex was trivial compared to Sesshoumaru's. All those scattered memories of his that had seeped into her head as she slept…….he was an arrogant, cold, vicious youkai bent on world dominion. No matter how……. nice….he was being right now, he was going to get back on track sooner or later and return to his original agenda. Which begged the question: why was he being different? What made them special?

What made her special?

A/N: Eh, Imagined Eyes, hope you're happy with this. I only posted the chapters in bunches because a) I have a dial-up connection and b) I'm an impossibly lazy bum. The rest of the story will be reformatted. Someday. Hark, do you hear the Last Trump?

Six chapters and an epilogue to go...


	4. Awakenings

**_Chapter eleven: Awakening._**

'_Raven_,' the mirror on the wall that doubled as a comm-screen said, rousing her from her blissful post-all-nighter slumber. '_Incoming call from Denthrax Four, incoming call from Denthrax Four, codename Wolfboy._'

'Wrr?' she said, lifting her head off the bed and wishing she had someone to kill.

The mirror cheerily repeated its message.

Raven resisted the impulse to smash it and stood unsteadily, making her way to the wall and staring at it, rubbing her eyes. Sesshoumaru was watching from the couch where he lay, a flash of gold under a sleepy eyelid. The demon was sleeping much better now that he knew Trigon wouldn't try to take his body again, but he was still highly tuned to his environment. The message verified, and Raven lifted the screen off the wall and made her way to the living room.

Beast Boy, Inuyasha, Sango and Miroku were playing video games. Seeing other people rested when she wasn't was a terrible thing.

'Remember I told you about some friends who'd know about Naraku? They're onscreen. Hey, Wolfboy,' Raven said, pressing the _activate_ button. 'How's Denthrax Four?'

'Yo, Raven!' the voice Sango heard from the other side of the screen was harsh but not unpleasant. It was also vaguely familiar……..

'Wimpy wolf,' Inuyasha growled beside her, and he dropped the console and stomped over to Raven. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

Raven looked at him. 'You know this guy?'

'Heh,' the youkai onscreen said. 'I'm surprised he recognised me after all this time. I thought his brain would've atrophied by now.'

'Words of more than two syllables, Kouga?' the hanyou growled. 'You amaze me.'

'Well, I'm a college professor. Have to hold up my reputation and all.'

'You, a teacher? Now I know the world's coming to an end.'

'Kouga?' Kagome said as she entered the living room. 'Are you talking to Kouga? Is he still alive?'

'What's it to you, wench?' Inuyasha demanded, blocking her view of the screen.

'Kouga is a friend,' Kagome said, with an air of having said this several times. 'I'm not interested in him that way, and I will sit you if you call me a wench again.'

'Yo, dog breath. I'm not interested in her anymore.'

'If we're all done having sweet reunions?' Raven said. 'Wolfboy, what did you find out?'

'Well, quite a lot, actually. And the information's completely free this time, since all I had to do was write down what was important. I've mailed it to you, but Kagura said she wanted to talk to you.'

'Kagura?' Kagome said.

'She's alive?' Sango said.

'She's on our side?' Miroku said.

'And what the heck is she doing with the wolf?' Inuyasha said, scratching his head.

'Heh. Inuyasha. Where have you been hiding all these years?' Kagura stepped up to the screen and waved cheerily. His hand dropped instinctively to Tetsusaiga, and she laughed. 'Oh, don't be stupid. I'm not under Naraku's control anymore. Why are you in the future?'

'A bit of time travelling,' Kagome said.

'She needed a vacation,' Beast Boy chimed in. 'Denthrax Four? Hey, isn't that where Starfire's fiancé came from? What was his name again………Glrdlesklechhh.'

'Bless you,' Miroku said.

'No, that was his name!'

'Yeah, he's the Prince or something. I wasn't here until four months ago, so.' Kouga shrugged. 'He's dead ugly and that's all I know. He's uglier than you, too, dog-shit, and that takes a lot of work.'

'What the heck are you two doing together?' Inuyasha said again.

'Well, after Naraku freed me–'

'Freed you?'

'Long story. Anyway, I left Earth as soon as I could after Naraku freed me. Kouga and I met up a century or so ago and fought every few months or so before we realised it was much more convenient to find each other if we were living in the same place. So we moved in together…….' Kagura smirked. 'The rest I'll leave to your imagination.'

'Th-th-that's unnatural! You're…….he's……'

'Eloquent, Inuyasha. Real eloquent.' Kouga put a possessive arm around her shoulders. Inuyasha was…….how did these Titans put it? Oh, yes. Grossed out. He twitched as the wolf youkai leaned in exaggeratedly for a kiss, knowing Kouga was jerking his chain but helpless not to react.

'Get a room,' he growled and turned away from the screen. The youkai's laughter burned in his ears as he grabbed Kagome and left.

'So, Raven,' the wind user said, still chuckling at the hanyou's exit. She sobered and straightened, pulling away from Kouga. He waved and left the screen. 'I felt some presence in this dimension a day ago. It was like Naraku, but not exactly. Three hours later, I get attacked by a……..thing…….that reminded me a bit too much of my not-so-dear creator. And then Kouga told me you had come looking for information about Naraku's death two weeks before. What's going on?'

Quickly, Raven outlined what they knew. Kagura's eyes tightened ever so slightly as she heard her out. 'I'll be there,' she said when the Azarathian finished. 'It should take a few hours. Any help I can give you, I will.'

'That would be good,' Raven said, tilting her head. 'But why?'

'It's simple,' Kagura said. 'I hate Naraku's guts. I want to see him die, slowly and painfully, even if it's only his body, and I want to laugh in his face while he does. And if I can help him along in some little way, it would make my year. Decade. Century.'

'Fair enough,' agreed Sango, who understood perfectly.

The Wind User's face darkened. 'You do realise that if Trigon or Naraku complete the jewel……they already have most of it. If he makes a wish……' She saw their shock and smiled again, bitterly this time. 'I see you hadn't thought of that. Well, now that I've ruined your day, I'd better go find my fans. I'll see you soon, Raven.'

The screen clicked and darkened.

'I'm not sleepy anymore,' Raven announced to nobody in particular.

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Sesshoumaru was dozing lightly in Raven's room, wrapped up comfortably in his moko-moko sama, when he felt her rise and half-opened an eye. She walked over to the screen on the wall, which was squawking at her. One advantage of living in a place like the Tower was that he could hear everyone's movements with his keen ears……smell was disrupted slightly by the air-conditioning, but he could track anyone down in seconds; he could even feel some auras. Inuyasha, the houshi, the miko and Raven, who all had some magic of their own, whether physical or psychic – and Rin smelled strongly of him, which made her easy to track. He closed his eyes and heard her walk into the living room, heard the conversation with a wolf youkai and….Kagura. So she had lived. That was a good thing.

He sighed, and all the smells of the Tower rushed into his nose on the inhalation. Dog demons tended to rely heavily on their ears and nose to analyse their environment. It was a reflection of their animal nature, he supposed. A smell contained information on ancestry, preferred habitat, the people the subject had recently been in contact with, diet, sexual habits, whether the subject had certain abilities (miasma, poison, pyrokinetics, mind-manipulation among others)……and on closer contact, whether they were feeling emotions which registered physically in galvanic response, breathing changes or body movements. It was as effective as reading auras, more in some cases. Some part of the soul was defined by the factors that scent revealed; being close to someone for long periods of time, close enough to truly smell them, was like being immersed in their soul. It was too……intimate. It was one reason Sesshoumaru hated society of any sort, hated being touched, hated being close to others.

There were two downsides to his sense of smell. One was purely physical, an annoyance at most; the other was beyond deadly. The first: vulnerability to scent attacks like the one the firecat-girl had tried. The second: pack.

His thoughts scattered as he fell into a thankfully dreamless slumber. He was woken again a few hours later when he felt Raven approach. Spice and lavender, dark energy rising and falling with her heartbeat, strong youki, light steps. He slowed his breathing and deepened it as if he was asleep. She walked into the room, closed the door softly before replacing the screen on the wall and lying down again.

'I know you're not asleep.'

Resigned, he opened one eye and stared at her. She wasn't looking at him. She was lying on her back, a thin dark blob on the blankets. How did she–

'Your aura's different when you sleep.'

He hated the way she read his mind. Even without her abilities.

'Sorry. I know you don't like it when I do that. If you want to be left alone…….'

'Don't tell me what I'm thinking. It's annoying.' He was too comfortable to summon up enough energy to snap and the words came out too quietly for his taste.

'Huh,' she said with tired amusement. 'Funny. I thought you liked it.'

'I will not stay here after Trigon is dead,' he said firmly. It was suddenly very important to say that, so he did. 'I will leave the Tower after that.'

It was the truth. He had wandered too long, known freedom and irresponsibility too long to remain tied to a place for much time. Besides, living with them while opposing their aims was hypocrisy.

And Sesshoumaru was not a hypocrite.

She turned over to look at him at that, propping her head on her hands. 'You're going back to the past?'

The answer to that was obvious. The past was……good while it lasted, but between Raven's books and Robin's crime files, he had a good idea of the underworld of the future. It was exciting and challenging in a way that killing stray humans and youkai in Sengoku Jidai wasn't. With guns and lasers, it was possible for him to be injured, maybe killed if he was careless; and what was ultimate conquest without ultimate risk?

'No. I will stay in the future.'

'And take over the world?' Mild curiosity, nothing more. He didn't reply. 'That's what you told your father. You dream of him often.'

He sighed, then wished he hadn't as her scent washed over him. Not that it was unpleasant, but it was…….too easily recognised.

'You're not going to tell me, are you.'

He shook his head solemnly. If he wasn't careful, he was going to laugh out loud at how ridiculous everything was.

'Sesshoumaru?' Tentative. Not a good sign.

'Hn?' he said warily.

'What's pack?'

Anything but that. Please, anything but that. He exhaled in a way that made it clear he didn't want to pursue the matter further. She didn't take the hint, though he knew she had picked up on it. 'I overheard you talking to Kagome the other day……. I left, but I caught the word before…….so what is it?'

'Kin,' he said curtly, annoyed that she had eavesdropped. 'A group defined by blood, deed or association. It entails certain responsibilities towards the other members and allows them certain strengths and insights into each other.'

'Is it a demon-to-demon thing, or……?'

Sesshoumaru huffed, sitting up. Why was he even paying attention to her? He opened his mouth to cut her down with a well-placed insult, and listened, horrified, as he replied to her question instead. The words spilled out with absolutely no control.

'There are few restrictions on the race of the pack's members. My father, for instance, mated a human woman.' The words burned on his tongue. 'While human members of a youkai's pack do not sense the bond as the youkai do, they feel……things……..that amount to pack-feel. Affections, a need to protect, fear.'

'Love, you mean.' Raven rolled over, staring up at the ceiling of her room, and missed seeing Sesshoumaru's face twist in near-physical pain. He clamped down on his aura, cutting her off. 'What you speak of as pack, humans call it family. Like the Titans. And Inuyasha, Kagome, Sango and Miroku – they're family too.'

'My brother's pack is strong,' Sesshoumaru admitted. 'As is yours.'

His face and aura were blank, but inside, he was in turmoil. He had done everything short of coming right out and saying it. She truly didn't know, did she? Of course, as a hanyou, the chances of her learning youkai ways were slim. And she had grown up among humans.

'It sounds like a good thing,' Raven remarked. It was the sincerity in her voice, the tiny little smile as she thought of her family that made him finally snap.

'It's not,' he said harshly, blurring over to the bed to tower over her. She stood on her bed, alarmed, but he still had a few inches on her. 'You have no understanding of the dangers of pack-feel. When you recognise your pack, it is irreversible, immediate, and it has no regard for anything. For a greater youkai such as I, my blood simply chooses my pack for me. I have had no say – none – in those I call pack. And not one of my pack is anyone I would ever wish to be allied to! I lost my father to him, and my mother to my father! I never had a choice in anything, I was never given anyth-'

He stopped. He had said too much. He had shouted, in fact, which he never did. He controlled his breathing, his emotions; stepped back until he was no longer nose-to-nose with her. She relaxed fractionally.

'Since you couldn't possibly want anything from Rin's family, should I assume you're speaking of Inuyasha?'

She was a little frightened, he could smell that. Her heart-rate was high, but her voice was calm. He forced himself to ignore the question.

'Before I answer that………there are some disadvantages to being pack. For instance…. I am an inuyoukai. My responsibilities towards my other pack-members would include protecting them and ensuring their well-being. Their only responsibility would be to follow my command – and with lesser beings like hanyou and humans, even that is not necessary. And once one acknowledges that another is pack, it requires them to be completely honest with them.'

'So that was why you were answering all those questions,' she mused. 'You sounded like you'd rather have your teeth pulled. I was wondering wh…….' She trailed off, and he waited silently for her to draw the obvious conclusion. Saw the realisation dawn on her face. 'Oh. Huh…….' she said, trying to process it.

He nodded, not bothering to acknowledge it openly.

'But you barely talk to Rin.'

'I don't lie to her. And unlike Rin, you have significant power and demon blood. It's enough to enforce the instinct.'

'I suppose I'm flattered,' she said finally.

You'd better be, he thought but didn't say. Two hanyou, two humans. What a pathetic pack his blood had saddled him with.

'You had no choice?' she said emotionlessly. Hiding behind her mask was foolish. He'd figured out long ago that when she was only emotionless when she was feeling something. 'I'm sorry about that.'

He shrugged it off. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't anyone's fault but his blood's.

'Well, I'd say my father qualifies as an unwanted bond.'

'But you were not pack, not if you could kill him.'

'You're right. Trigon was never my family. But Inuyasha is yours, judging by how you react to him. You hate him, and he's pack. You've fought him and aided him, all these years……but to be such in conflict with your blood. Wouldn't that hurt you?'

'Freedom is worth some pain.'

'I'm sorry,' she said again, knowing how useless that was. She could feel the pain radiating off him. For all purposes, he'd simply been informed that she was his family until he died, and all she could do was apologise? How hopelessly inadequate. 'Rin, Inuyasha, me…….that's your pack?'

'The miko as well.'

'A hell of a choice for a demon supremacist.'

'I laugh myself to tears about it at nights,' he said bitterly. 'And don't apologise again. I told you it's not your fault.'

'Ah. So it's your blood's fault? Sesshoumaru, how happy do you think you can be if you hate yourself?'

He looked at her, eyes blazing, but before he could reply, he froze, one ear twitching backwards. 'Jyaki,' he said. 'It's Jinx.'

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'Six-eighths wrench,' Cyborg said, sticking his head out from under the T-Car. Rin handed him the wrench obediently. He gave her a quick grin before he crawled back. The kid really was picking up the trade quickly. Rin was the most talkative child he'd ever seen; she even put Beast Boy to shame on occasion. She liked watching him work, and hung around him most days, singing or humming or playing pointless games with herself. It was nice, like having a radio on.

Beast Boy skidded into the room. 'Hey, Cy!' he said excitedly. 'Check out how I can transform now!'

Cyborg groaned. 'I'm working, BB. Go away.'

'But it's really cool! It's so much bigger!'

'BB,' he said very patiently, 'GO AWAY NOW!'

The grass stain trudged out, crestfallen. Rin followed him. Cyborg shook his head and continued to work.

About five minutes later, the voice-activated bug in the med room buzzed. There was a whispery crackle in the room, as if someone was having a quiet conversation or………pulling on clothes? Cyborg pulled himself out of the T-Car's innards, cracking himself on the fleshy side of the head in the process. He was inside the room in fifty seconds, which was an official record.

Jinx was awake.

The sorceress was pulling her costume on, her back to him. She stopped moving when he entered the doorway. She was mostly dressed.

'Jinx?' he said hopefully. She didn't respond. He stepped closer.

'Cyborg.' The whisper wasn't Jinx's, and he turned to look at the door where Raven was standing. Her dark energy was crackling around her in a dark flame. Sesshoumaru was right behind her. 'Get away now.' The urgency in her voice froze him in place even before Jinx turned to face them. Her lavender eyes were glowing opaque crimson, and there were four of them.

'Jinx,' he said, so softly even Sesshoumaru barely heard him. 'You're not……'

Jinx raised her hands slowly, jerkily, and a hex-bolt formed at the tips of her fingers, one on each hand. It wasn't pink like her normal bolts were. It glowed and danced like fire, and its colour mimicked her eyes. The first bolt launched itself at the pair in the doorway, and bounced off a dark shield. It connected with the ceiling of the room, sending plaster everywhere. The second hit his legs, freezing them to the spot. Jinx smiled, an ugly feral smile that looked terribly out of place on her pretty face.

'Cyborg,' Raven said quietly. Her hands crackled blackly. 'I'm sorry.'

He thought briefly, crazily, Why is everyone whispering?

And before he could even begin to wonder what she was sorry about, a wave of black filled his vision and everything went very very silent.

**_Chapter twelve: Titans' Tower_**

'Get everyone out of here,' Raven said in a strained voice. Sesshoumaru could see Jinx sending bolt after bolt at the thin, transparent barrier that contained her and the motionless Cyborg, and the empath's arms were trembling with the force they were absorbing. The inside of the barrier was pulsing with fire. 'It's going to blow. NOW, or she'll kill us all!'

And for the first time in centuries, Sesshoumaru obeyed a direct order and ran.

He found most of them scattered through the common area, and his roar of 'Attack. Get out of the Tower!' was enough to get them moving. He sniffed. Rin. Where was Rin? The roof, with the green boy. The Tower blurred past him as he raced to the roof, not bothering to open doors to go through them. The boy was on the roof, transformed into some strange goat with large horns, Rin giggling on his back. Sesshoumaru didn't even stop. 'Get her off the Tower. It's going to explode.' The boy nodded and transformed into an eagle, picking the child up in his talons and flying off over the water, but Sesshoumaru was already back in the Tower.

Raven's teeth were gritted and her entire body was convulsing. Jinx wasn't even visible inside the barrier anymore. Instead, there was only white fire, star-hot. Whatever she did, it wasn't going to keep for more than ten seconds. At most. Maintaining the secondary barrier that kept Cyborg safe from the searing heat Jinx was projecting was much more difficult. She was just about to let go when Sesshoumaru blinked back next to her, eyes darting as he took in the situation, drawing his sword. She wanted to scream at him to get out, but before she could unclench the muscles necessary to do so the barrier failed. She had just enough time to step in front of him and draw her cloak around them both………

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From his perch on the waterfront of Jump City, Sango stared as Titans' Tower glowed red-hot instantly. Starfire, who was still carrying Robin and Miroku, swerved crazily as she saw it too, falling to the ground from the shock. Inuyasha leapt to intercept her, catching all three in midair and landing safely. The crimson Tower in the middle of the harbour burned for another microsecond before it erupted.

A pillar of white fire as large as the island rose to the skies, vapourising every cloud in its vicinity, blasting upwards as if it wanted to reach outer space. It nearly did. The explosion was all the more frightening because it was completely soundless. Apart from the sound of the Tower shattering, there was no crackle of flame, no mushroom cloud, nothing remotely normal about the fire. Its base expanded in an eyeblink, blinding them and streaking out at the city. Raven must have shielded the city from the worst of the blast; its force expended before it reached, and the white fizzled and faded abruptly just a few hundred metres away from the place where they were standing. It was still extending outwards, and the pillar of flame blazed for another second before winking out abruptly. Blue afterimages danced across Sango's eyes. She could see the sea floor. The fire had simply erased the ocean.

A factory siren shrilled loudly. They all jumped.

'Raven…….' Beast Boy said numbly.

'Sesshoumaru-sama?' Rin added.

'Goddamn,' Robin said, pale. He swore so rarely that they all stared at him. 'Tidal wave.'

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The depth of the ocean in the natural harbour of Jump City ranged from a couple of hundred feet at its deepest to thirty or forty at its shallowest. The entire harbour was now dry, and the ocean rushed to fill the vacuum in blind obedience to natural law. The wall of water seething towards the unsuspecting city was now some fifty feet high. The Titans stood, shellshocked, as the wave approached the place they had fought all these years to protect. It had already covered the island. The shriek of the water grew louder, and Inuyasha cursed as he hoisted Kagome onto his back and leapt up to a terrace high enough to be safe. He jumped back down to continue the rescue, dimly aware that the rest of the group were doing likewise, and by the second trip he knew they were out of time.

Seconds before the wave hit, a solid wall of transparent air smashed into the wave from above, gentling it and pushing some of the water back. The wave that finally hit the harbour was only six feet tall. The barrier released gently, ensuring that the ocean remained somewhat calm. Inuyasha whistled in appreciation. Making such a barrier wasn't something just anyone could do.

Beast Boy transformed and flew to the island that was just appearing over the waves, faster than anyone had ever seen him fly. Halfway across, he transformed into a dolphin and dived beneath the surface.

'Yo, dog breath!'

Kagome laid a reflexive hand on his arm as he growled, hands crooking into claws equally reflexively. Kouga leapt off Kagura's feather, which was hovering over their heads. He was still dressed in his old costume, but the fur and breastplate had been replaced by supple leather. He was barefoot, and his tail waved as bushily as ever from the back of his pants.

'Really, Kouga. Must you be so uncivilised?' Kagura said as she hopped off the feather they were on, shrinking it and tucking it into her hair. In contrast, she was dressed in an entirely modern fashion in a conservative skirt-and-blouse outfit. 'So. Nice work?'

'Brilliant, my love,' Kouga said, giving her a hug and an exuberant kiss on the top of her head, the only place he could reach since she was facing the others. Kagome watched him warily, hoping he wouldn't grab her hand and start flattering her again. It was deeply disturbing when he did that, but not quite as disturbing as seeing him with Kagura. There, she had to agree with Inuyasha, who was trying hard not to gag. That was just wrong.

'You didn't take that……thing…..from Denthrax Four, did you?' Robin said skeptically.

'Uh, no. The ship's in the woods, duh.'

'That was quite impressive, Kagura,' Miroku said, calm as ever in the face of the weird.

'I had five centuries to practice,' the Wind User said, shrugging. 'What actually caused the wave? I just got here.'

'Titans' Tower blew up,' said Robin in some disbelief. Nothing could possibly have survived that blast.

Kagome keeled over, unconscious.

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Pain. A lot of pain, spread out all along Sesshoumaru's back, and salt water stinging recent burns gained from being propelled at high speed through the ultra-thick red-hot walls of Titans' Tower by the explosion. A dead weight pressed to most of his front. Which was quite unburned, and that was strange, because hadn't he been facing the blast? He took a shuddering breath and immediately regretted it as a wash of cool water entered his nostrils. His arm tightened instinctively around the weight – Raven, he remembered her stepping in front of him – as he began to choke. Which way was the surface? His eyes were blinded. He'd lost his grip on Tenseiga. Even the fang hadn't put up a barrier strong enough to keep them safe. Raven must have thrown everything into that shield.

A huge mouth opened right behind him and swallowed them whole.

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He woke up again a minute or so later as Beast Boy (in whale form) blew him and Raven out of his mouth and onto a rocky beach. The impact sent another vicious stab of pain in his back, which had just begun healing. He lifted his arm up experimentally, wincing in disgust as whale saliva dripped off it. That child had foul breath. Raven wasn't breathing. He couldn't hear the sound of it, and her heart was slowing already

The untransformed Beast Boy darted up the beach to them. 'Is she okay?' he demanded. Sesshoumaru let go of the dead girl, rolling himself upright as he coughed again and again, trying to get rid of the water in his nose and lungs. He grunted, annoyed that he'd fallen into deep water again. He lost all sense of direction in the water because it warped his hearing and smelling so badly; this made him extremely vulnerable to drowning, and he hated it. He looked at the Titan, who was pressing down on Raven's chest repeatedly and listening to her lungs. A waste of time. He reined his emotions in carefully and began to fly off, before a choking sound made him turn back. Raven was coughing up water, and her hand was scrabbling weakly at the sand under her. Sesshoumaru watched quietly, making no move towards her or away. The burns were really beginning to sting, now that the adrenaline was slowing. They were going to take hours to heal.

'Rae!' Beast Boy yelped delightedly, and grabbed her into a hug, burying his face in her hair and pulling her into a sitting position. 'Rae.'

'Get off me,' she mumbled, comically horrified, but one arm came up reluctantly to hold him back. The green Titan sighed happily for a second before he frowned, pulling away as her arm dropped apathetically.

'Raven. Where's Cy?'

'Cy.' The empath's eyes widened, and she tried to stand before flopping back down to the ground. She growled, frustrated, and tried again with no success. 'I think the barrier held. He could be anywhere in the water…….maybe he's even awake.'

'Tenseiga's in there as well,' said Sesshoumaru. Asking a mortal for help. This really wasn't his week. Only two things could make it worse. He could die, or Inuyasha could hug him. Now there was a real nightmare.

'Relax. I'll go look.' The shapechanger dove into the water again.

'It's times like this I wish Aqualad hadn't joined Titans East instead,' Raven complained as she tried a third time to stand. When she couldn't, she groaned and flopped onto her back, glaring at the sky. 'I don't suppose you'd actually come over here and help?'

'Ah, but I like to watch you suffer,' he said.

She stared at him. 'Was that a joke? Well. The world really _is_ ending.'

He huffed and pulled her upright, keeping her standing with the aid of a fistful of cloak. Raven wobbled madly, grabbing his arm to support herself.

'On second thought, maybe you were serious.'

His lip twitched. 'Completely. Are you feeling dizzy?'

'I don't have the time to feel dizzy. Can you take me to where the others are? I'm too tired to fly.'

Sesshoumaru hned in agreement and tightened his grip around her.

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'_He's distracted now,' Naraku said conversationally to Kagome, who shivered slightly at the shock of seeing him. They were in a small featureless gray room, and he had just told her that they were in his mind. 'If he weren't recovering from causing that blast through the girl's body I'd still be stuffed in a corner of my own.'_

_Well, Kagome thought. I've always been too brave for my own good. Let's see where this goes. 'He's using your youkai. You're not in control at all?'_

_The hanyou laughed bitterly. 'Does it look like it? Listen carefully. I haven't much time. Don't give me any information; he might find out. Jinx's soul is not within her body anymore. He's ripped it out and placed it within a cage in mine. She will not return to her body. Don't hesitate to kill it if you see it.' Naraku's eyes darted continuously from side to side of the little gray room and she could sense his fear. It was palpable. 'His powers are a combination of his and mine.'_

'_So T-'_

'_Don't say his name!' the hanyou hissed, clapping a hand on her mouth. 'He's going to reconstruct here.' A flash of a dark underground chamber lit up the inside of Kagome's mind. 'Tonight, at moonrise. You have five, maybe six hours left. If I can strike, I will only strike as night falls. Remember that,' he stressed. 'I want him dead as much I've ever wanted………never mind. I won't know when night falls, you'll have to tell me. I am on your side today. He's going to attack you all. To keep you from the place where he's going to ascend or to get the Shikon shards; either will fulfil his purposes. Two shards are not in this world, I understand?'_

_Kagome paled. 'No. They're here.'_

'_Shit, don't tell me that! Keep the shards safe. And stop the ascension.'_

'_You don't sound normal.'_

'_You're not here to analyse my speech patterns. Now get the hell out.' _

_Everything blurred and she felt him touch her cheek ever so lightly. His whisper of 'Kikyou,' was the last thing she knew_

before she woke up to find Inuyasha staring at her, so close her eyes crossed trying to focus on him. 'Kagome?' he said inquiringly in that harsh half-whisper he used when he was worried about her; that whisper that warmed her heart. He could be so sweet, she mused dreamily for a second.

'Inuyasha,' she smiled and grabbed one of his ears on reflex. He flicked it out of her grasp and sat back. 'Well, you're back to normal. Why did you pass out, stupid?'

'I didn't faint,' she said indignantly. It was really amazing how easily he could annoy her! 'I was…..' and she trailed off. Not one of the three here who knew Naraku would pay the least attention to anything he said. He could play poker with the devil and win, and he had proved himself a traitor a hundred times over. Kagome was the only one who'd never lost anything to him. Miroku's life, Sango's family, Inuyasha's love. But he did seem sincere, and he'd been afraid. That, if nothing else, convinced her. Naraku had never displayed fear. Anger, smugness, shock, rage, bitter sorrow……….but he had never been afraid.

'Kagome? Are you spacing out on me?'

'Wha? Uh, no.' She scrambled to her feet, dusting off. 'I had a vision.'

Inuyasha arched one dark eyebrow. 'A vision? Are you sure you didn't just, hallucinate or something? Since when do you have visions?'

'Since now, you jerk!'

'Keh!' he said and crossed his arms across his chest. 'Wench.'

'Inuyashaaaa……' she said sweetly. He cringed.

Quickly, she told them what Naraku had told her, making it seem as if she had seen the images. When she told them about the underground room, Robin frowned.

'Think she's talking about the library, Ra–'

He cut himself off. Except for Starfire, who was crying silently at the edge of the roof, he was the only Titan there. Beast Boy was looking for Raven, and she and Cyborg –

No. He wasn't going to go there, because that wasn't something he could handle.

'This is serious,' Kagura remarked.

'Keh! Tell me something I don't know.'

'Inuyasha…..'

'Go ahead and sit me, idiot!' the hanyou yelled. 'See if I care.'

'Actually, I was going to tell you that Sesshoumaru's coming.'

The hanyou spun around faster than any of them to stare at the approaching white-clad dripping form of Sesshoumaru. Kagura, who had the keenest eyes, spotted the dark shape first. 'He's got Raven!' she called to the others. The tension grew until Raven lifted one arm and waved weakly at them. Robin felt his eyes burning behind his ever-present mask as they landed on the terrace. Starfire squealed and gave Raven one of her infamous bone-crushing hugs. Raven batted her away as she grew slowly purple for lack of breath. 'Two hugs in a day,' she complained under her breath, clutching her throat. Sesshoumaru felt a twinge of pity. He knew exactly how she felt. Rin's hugs could be….. disturbingly tight at times. She was giving him one now, with all four limbs wrapped tightly around his right leg; the only way she could hold on tighter would be to dig in with her teeth. She was talking faster than a chipmunk, and the demon knew better than to focus on her conversation. That was an express route to a raging migraine. Robin stepped up next, giving Raven a much softer hug and a hand-squeeze before smiling and moving back to let everyone else have their turn. As he turned away to stare at the ocean, Sesshoumaru felt oddly……….no. He was never lonely, was he? But watching Raven surrounded by her friends was troubling, because it simply highlighted the fact that except for Rin, he didn't really have any real–

Someone tapped him gently on the shoulder and he looked over, surprised he hadn't heard footsteps. Kagome stood there, smiling. 'I'm glad you're alive,' the miko said. In a whisper, she added, 'And so is that idiot brother of yours, even if he won't admit it in a million years.'

Sesshoumaru nodded in reply and looked away. Something clicked inside him then, a new link established in his aura. He recognised it. So Kagome had acknowledged him as pack. That made two agreed and two undecided. He felt Inuyasha's eyes on him from across the terrace, felt the wariness and regret and indecision in his last blood relative. The fates truly did hate him.

'Robin,' the communicator crackled. 'I've found Cyborg and the sword.'

'How is he?'

'Uhh…….remember the time we went to see who was trashing that communications station and that big ugly chased us all and the T-ship crashed on that planet with the big aliens and he went to pieces and I had to put him back together?'

'Ye-es,' Robin said carefully.

'Worse. Much much worse.'

'_How_ much worse, Beast Boy?' he snapped, keeping precarious hold on his rapidly fraying sanity. A long meaningful silence from the communicator.

'It's going to take months, Robin,' the Titan said finally. 'If it can be done at all. His head's been injured this time, and he's the only one who can repair himself.'

Robin covered his eyes for a second, closing them under the mask, his face twisting slightly. 'Okay. Leave Cy on the island and get the sword here. Out.' Robin clicked it shut as a distant green shape took wing from the rocks. 'So. We're short a Titan. Raven, take Kagome and go check out the library. If it is the place, let us know immediately. The rest of us are going to stock up on weapons and then follow you.'

'Robin. We don't have a weapons store anymore. It kind of blew up?'

The Boy Wonder stared at her as if she was stupid. 'Do you really think the tower was the only place I stashed stuff?'

'Heh,' Raven said sheepishly. 'All right then.'

'I'm not sure I should be going anywhere near Jinx,' Kagome said thoughtfully. 'I mean, if Trigon's there, and he captures us, he'll have all the shards but two.'

'Which is why you'll give me the shards until you get back.' Robin extended a gloved hand to her. The miko looked doubtfully at it.

'What makes you think I'll let you have the shards?' Inuyasha said suspiciously.

'Don't be a fool,' Robin snapped. 'I've no interest in these shards of yours. What's the matter, you afraid of me?'

Inuyasha's teeth bared. The Titan stared him down, irritated.

The hanyou snarled wordlessly before turning away. Kagome lifted the chain with the Shikon shards off her neck and handed it to him. 'Don't touch them,' she cautioned. 'And don't let anyone else take them.' The Titan nodded seriously.

'I think we'll stay here,' Miroku said. 'They might have need of our knowledge.' Kouga opened his mouth to say that he knew more than the monk, but Kagura stepped on his foot hard and he shut up. 'If I may have a word with you before I go, Kagome?'

'Of course, Miroku,' Kagome said warily. The monk looked serious, and that wasn't a good thing. A serious Miroku saw too much and said too little to be comfortable.

He knelt down on the terrace, dragging her down with him; pulled out a piece of chalk from somewhere in his robes and began writing swiftly on the concrete. Kagome was puzzled for a second before she understood. Writing was an effective way to keep Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru from listening in.

_What actually happened?_

_I don't know what you're talking about, Miroku. _

_Yeah, right. You're a lousy liar. _

_Does it matter? The information is accurate. _

_It matters. You wouldn't lie about what you learnt, but as to how you found out – who was it, Kagome? Was it Naraku?_

Kagome's face went tomato-red and her jaw dropped. 'H-h-how did–' she squeaked. Miroku raised an eyebrow and shushed her silently.

_If it had been anyone else, you would have told us. It's probably wiser that you didn't. I don't think the other two would accept it. That was your reason, right?_

_I hate you. _

_Thank you. I know. I love you, too. _

_Pervert,_ she wrote fondly._ Are you going to tell the others?_

_No, not if you don't want to. _

_Naraku said that if he could, he would strike at sunset. Do you know what he meant by that? _

_No, though it rings a bell. I'll think about it. _

Miroku stood up, erasing their conversation. 'Thank you, Kagome,' he said and smiled. Kagome threw him a grateful wink.

Behind her, Raven raised her hands. A stream of dark energy shrouded the others, settling into their bodies. 'Raven?' Beast Boy asked.

'It's what I did the last time. It should make you immune to the mass-spells Trigon casts. Remember what he did last time?' The Titan shivered. The entire world – and everyone in it – had been turned instantly to stone.

'Come on,' Raven said impatiently as she walked deliberately to the door leading inside the building. 'We're running out of time.'

'Aren't you going to fly?' Kagome asked, curious.

'In case you didn't notice, I'm tired. Public transportation sounds good right now.'

'Keh. Too slow.' Inuyasha was standing next to Kagome, hands tucked out of sight as always. 'Climb on, wench.'

'You'd spill her in a moment, you clumsy fool,' Sesshoumaru commented from across the terrace.

'I do not! I carry her all the time!'

'And how do you propose to carry Raven at the same time?'

'Eeh……' Inuyasha said, scratching his head.

'Oh, look, it's thinking. Stop before you get hurt,' the inuyoukai said as he stepped up next to them. 'Hn. I'll carry her.' He scooped Raven up in his arm, pinned her to his front and leaped off the roof. 'Race you there, brother!' he called. Inuyasha swore and leaped to the next roof as Kagome whooped and clutched his shoulders for dear life.

'We don't know the way!'

'I've got a map!' Kagome yelled.


	5. Titans' Tower

**_Chapter twelve: Titans' Tower_**

'Get everyone out of here,' Raven said in a strained voice. Sesshoumaru could see Jinx sending bolt after bolt at the thin, transparent barrier that contained her and the motionless Cyborg, and the empath's arms were trembling with the force they were absorbing. The inside of the barrier was pulsing with fire. 'It's going to blow. NOW, or she'll kill us all!'

And for the first time in centuries, Sesshoumaru obeyed a direct order and ran.

He found most of them scattered through the common area, and his roar of 'Attack. Get out of the Tower!' was enough to get them moving. He sniffed. Rin. Where was Rin? The roof, with the green boy. The Tower blurred past him as he raced to the roof, not bothering to open doors to go through them. The boy was on the roof, transformed into some strange goat with large horns, Rin giggling on his back. Sesshoumaru didn't even stop. 'Get her off the Tower. It's going to explode.' The boy nodded and transformed into an eagle, picking the child up in his talons and flying off over the water, but Sesshoumaru was already back in the Tower.

Raven's teeth were gritted and her entire body was convulsing. Jinx wasn't even visible inside the barrier anymore. Instead, there was only white fire, star-hot. Whatever she did, it wasn't going to keep for more than ten seconds. At most. Maintaining the secondary barrier that kept Cyborg safe from the searing heat Jinx was projecting was much more difficult. She was just about to let go when Sesshoumaru blinked back next to her, eyes darting as he took in the situation, drawing his sword. She wanted to scream at him to get out, but before she could unclench the muscles necessary to do so the barrier failed. She had just enough time to step in front of him and draw her cloak around them both………

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From his perch on the waterfront of Jump City, Sango stared as Titans' Tower glowed red-hot instantly. Starfire, who was still carrying Robin and Miroku, swerved crazily as she saw it too, falling to the ground from the shock. Inuyasha leapt to intercept her, catching all three in midair and landing safely. The crimson Tower in the middle of the harbour burned for another microsecond before it erupted.

A pillar of white fire as large as the island rose to the skies, vapourising every cloud in its vicinity, blasting upwards as if it wanted to reach outer space. It nearly did. The explosion was all the more frightening because it was completely soundless. Apart from the sound of the Tower shattering, there was no crackle of flame, no mushroom cloud, nothing remotely normal about the fire. Its base expanded in an eyeblink, blinding them and streaking out at the city. Raven must have shielded the city from the worst of the blast; its force expended before it reached, and the white fizzled and faded abruptly just a few hundred metres away from the place where they were standing. It was still extending outwards, and the pillar of flame blazed for another second before winking out abruptly. Blue afterimages danced across Sango's eyes. She could see the sea floor. The fire had simply erased the ocean.

A factory siren shrilled loudly. They all jumped.

'Raven…….' Beast Boy said numbly.

'Sesshoumaru-sama?' Rin added.

'Goddamn,' Robin said, pale. He swore so rarely that they all stared at him. 'Tidal wave.'

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The depth of the ocean in the natural harbour of Jump City ranged from a couple of hundred feet at its deepest to thirty or forty at its shallowest. The entire harbour was now dry, and the ocean rushed to fill the vacuum in blind obedience to natural law. The wall of water seething towards the unsuspecting city was now some fifty feet high. The Titans stood, shell-shocked, as the wave approached the place they had fought all these years to protect. It had already covered the island. The shriek of the water grew louder, and Inuyasha cursed as he hoisted Kagome onto his back and leapt up to a terrace high enough to be safe. He jumped back down to continue the rescue, dimly aware that the rest of the group was doing likewise, and by the second trip he knew they were out of time.

Seconds before the wave hit, a solid wall of transparent air smashed into the wave from above, gentling it and pushing some of the water back. The wave that finally hit the harbour was only six feet tall. The barrier released gently, ensuring that the ocean remained somewhat calm. Inuyasha whistled in appreciation. Making such a barrier wasn't something just anyone could do.

Beast Boy transformed and flew to the island that was just appearing over the waves, faster than anyone had ever seen him fly. Halfway across, he transformed into a dolphin and dived beneath the surface.

'Yo, dog breath!'

Kagome laid a reflexive hand on his arm as he growled, hands crooking into claws equally reflexively. Kouga leapt off Kagura's feather, which was hovering over their heads. He was still dressed in his old costume, but the fur and breastplate had been replaced by supple leather. He was barefoot, and his tail waved as bushily as ever from the back of his pants.

'Really, Kouga. Must you be so uncivilised?' Kagura said as she hopped off the feather they were on, shrinking it and tucking it into her hair. In contrast, she was dressed in an entirely modern fashion in a conservative skirt-and-blouse outfit. 'So. Nice work?'

'Brilliant, my love,' Kouga said, giving her a hug and an exuberant kiss on the top of her head, the only place he could reach since she was facing the others. Kagome watched him warily, hoping he wouldn't grab her hand and start flattering her again. It was deeply disturbing when he did that, but not quite as disturbing as seeing him with Kagura. There, she had to agree with Inuyasha, who was trying hard not to gag. That was just wrong.

'You didn't take that……thing…..from Denthrax Four, did you?' Robin said skeptically.

'Uh, no. The ship's in the woods, duh.'

'That was quite impressive, Kagura,' Miroku said, calm as ever in the face of the weird.

'I had five centuries to practice,' the Wind User said, shrugging. 'What actually caused the wave? I just got here.'

'Titans' Tower blew up,' said Robin in some disbelief. Nothing could possibly have survived that blast.

Kagome keeled over, unconscious.

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Pain. A lot of pain, spread out all along Sesshoumaru's back, and salt water stinging recent burns gained from being propelled at high speed through the ultra-thick red-hot walls of Titans' Tower by the explosion. A dead weight pressed to most of his front. Which was quite unburned, except for his lower legs, and that was strange, because hadn't he been facing the blast? He took a shuddering breath and immediately regretted it as a wash of cool water entered his nostrils. His arm tightened instinctively around the weight – Raven, he remembered her stepping in front of him – as he began to choke. Which way was the surface? His eyes were blinded. He'd lost his grip on Tenseiga. Even the fang hadn't put up a barrier strong enough to keep them safe. Raven must have thrown everything into that shield.

A huge mouth opened right behind him and swallowed them whole.

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He woke up again a minute or so later as Beast Boy (in whale form) blew him and Raven out of his mouth and onto a rocky beach. The impact sent another vicious stab of pain in his back, which had just begun healing. Sesshoumaru wrinkled his nose……and sneezed several times. He lifted his arm up experimentally, wincing in disgust as whale saliva dripped off it. That child had _foul_ breath.

Raven wasn't breathing. He couldn't hear the sound of it, and her heart was already slowing.

The untransformed Beast Boy darted up the beach to them. 'Is she okay?' he demanded. Sesshoumaru let go of the dead girl, rolling himself upright as he coughed again and again, trying to get rid of the water in his nose and lungs. He grunted, annoyed that he'd fallen into deep water again. He lost all sense of direction in the water because it warped his hearing and smelling so badly; this made him extremely vulnerable to drowning, and he hated it. He looked at the Titan, who was pressing down on Raven's chest repeatedly and listening to her lungs. A waste of time. He reined his emotions in carefully and began to fly off, before a choking sound made him turn back. Raven was coughing up water, and her hand was scrabbling weakly at the sand under her. Sesshoumaru watched quietly, making no move towards her or away. The burns were really beginning to sting, now that the adrenaline was slowing. They were going to take hours to heal.

'Rae!' Beast Boy yelped delightedly, and grabbed her into a hug, burying his face in her hair and pulling her into a sitting position. 'Rae.'

'Get off me,' she mumbled, comically horrified, but one arm came up reluctantly to hold him back. The green Titan sighed happily for a second before he frowned, pulling away as her arm dropped apathetically.

'Raven. Where's Cy?'

'Cy.' The empath's eyes widened and she tried to stand before flopping back down to the ground. She growled, frustrated, and tried again with no success. 'I think the barrier held. He could be anywhere in the water…….maybe he's even awake.'

'Tenseiga's in there as well,' said Sesshoumaru. Asking a mortal for help. This really wasn't his week. Only two things could make it worse. He could die, or Inuyasha could hug him. Now there was a real nightmare.

'Relax. I'll go look.' The shapechanger dove into the water again.

'It's times like this I wish Aqualad hadn't joined Titans East instead,' Raven complained as she tried a third time to stand. When she couldn't, she groaned and flopped onto her back, glaring at the sky. 'I don't suppose you'd actually come over here and help?'

'Ah, but I like to watch you suffer,' he said.

She stared at him. 'Was that a joke? Well. The world really _is_ ending.'

He huffed and pulled her upright, keeping her standing with the aid of a fistful of cloak. Raven wobbled madly, grabbing his arm to support herself.

'On second thought, maybe you were serious.'

His lip twitched. 'Completely. Are you feeling dizzy?'

'I don't have the time to feel dizzy. Can you take me to where the others are? I'm too tired to fly.'

Sesshoumaru hned in agreement and tightened his grip around her.

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'_He's distracted now,' Naraku said conversationally to Kagome, who shivered slightly at the shock of seeing him. They were in a small featureless gray room, and he had just told her that they were in his mind. 'If he weren't recovering from causing that blast through the girl's body I'd still be stuffed in a corner of my own.'_

_Well, Kagome thought. I've always been too brave for my own good. Let's see where this goes. 'He's using your youkai. You're not in control at all?'_

_The hanyou laughed bitterly. 'Does it look like it? Listen carefully. I haven't much time. Don't give me any information; he might find out. Jinx's soul is not within her body anymore. He's ripped it out and placed it within a cage in mine. She will not return to her body. Don't hesitate to kill it if you see it.' Naraku's eyes darted continuously from side to side of the little gray room and she could sense his fear. It was palpable. 'His powers are a combination of his and mine.'_

'_So T-'_

'_Don't say his name!' the hanyou hissed, clapping a hand on her mouth. 'He's going to reconstruct here.' A flash of a dark underground chamber lit up the inside of Kagome's mind. 'Tonight, at moonrise. You have five, maybe six hours left. If I can strike, I will only strike as night falls. Remember that,' he stressed. 'I want him dead as much I've ever wanted………never mind. I won't know when night falls; you'll have to tell me. I am on your side today. He's going to attack you all. To keep you from the place where he's going to ascend or to get the Shikon shards; either will fulfill his purposes. Two shards are not in this world, I understand?'_

_Kagome paled. 'No. They're here.'_

'_Don't tell me that! Keep the shards safe. And stop the ascension.'_

'_You don't sound normal.'_

'_You're not here to analyse my speech patterns. Now get the hell out.' _

_Everything blurred and she felt him touch her cheek ever so lightly. His whisper of 'Kikyou,' was the last thing she knew_

before she woke up to find Inuyasha staring at her, so close her eyes crossed trying to focus on him. 'Kagome?' he said inquiringly in that harsh half-whisper he used when he was worried about her; that whisper that warmed her heart. He could be so sweet, she mused dreamily for a second.

'Inuyasha,' she smiled and grabbed one of his ears on reflex. He flicked it out of her grasp and sat back. 'Well, you're back to normal. Why did you pass out, stupid?'

'I didn't faint,' she said indignantly. It was really amazing how easily he could annoy her! 'I was…..' and she trailed off. Not one of the three here who knew Naraku would pay the least attention to anything he said. He could play poker with the devil and win, and he had proved himself a traitor a hundred times over. Kagome was the only one who'd never lost anything to him. Miroku's life, Sango's family, Inuyasha's love. But he did seem sincere, and he'd been afraid. That, if nothing else, convinced her. Naraku had never displayed fear. Anger, smugness, shock, rage, bitter sorrow……….but he had never been afraid.

'Kagome? Are you spacing out on me?'

'Wha? Uh, no.' She scrambled to her feet, dusting off. 'I had a vision.'

Inuyasha arched one dark eyebrow. 'A vision? Are you sure you didn't just, hallucinate or something? Since when do you have visions?'

'Since now, you jerk!'

'Keh!' he said and crossed his arms across his chest. 'Wench.'

'Inuyashaaaa……' she said sweetly. He cringed.

Quickly, she told them what Naraku had told her, making it seem as if she had seen the images. When she told them about the underground room, Robin frowned.

'Think she's talking about the library, Ra–'

He cut himself off. Except for Starfire, who was crying silently at the edge of the roof, he was the only Titan there. Beast Boy was looking for Raven, and she and Cyborg –

No. He wasn't going to go there, because that wasn't something he could handle.

'This is serious,' Kagura remarked.

'Keh! Tell me something I don't know.'

'Inuyasha…..'

'Go ahead and sit me, idiot!' the hanyou yelled. 'See if I care.'

'Actually, I was going to tell you that Sesshoumaru's coming.'

The hanyou spun around faster than any of them to stare at the approaching white-clad dripping form of Sesshoumaru. Kagura, who had the keenest eyes, spotted the dark shape first. 'He's got Raven!' she called to the others. The tension grew until Raven lifted one arm and waved weakly at them. Robin felt his eyes burning behind his ever-present mask as they landed on the terrace. Starfire squealed and gave Raven one of her infamous bone-crushing hugs. Raven batted her away as she grew slowly purple for lack of breath. 'Two hugs in a day,' she complained under her breath, clutching her throat. Sesshoumaru felt a twinge of pity. He knew exactly how she felt. Rin's hugs could be….. disturbingly tight at times. She was giving him one now, with all four limbs wrapped tightly around his right leg; the only way she could hold on tighter would be to dig in with her teeth. She was talking faster than a chipmunk, and the demon knew better than to focus on her conversation. That was an express route to a raging migraine. Robin stepped up next, giving Raven a much softer hug and a hand-squeeze before smiling and moving back to let everyone else have their turn. As he turned away to stare at the ocean, Sesshoumaru felt oddly……….no. He was never lonely, was he? But watching Raven surrounded by her friends was troubling, because it simply highlighted the fact that except for Rin, he didn't really have any real–

Someone tapped him gently on the shoulder and he looked over, surprised he hadn't heard footsteps. Kagome stood there, smiling. 'I'm glad you're alive,' the miko said. In a whisper, she added, 'And so is that idiot brother of yours, even if he won't admit it in a million years.'

Sesshoumaru nodded in reply and looked away. Something clicked inside him then, a new link established in his aura. He recognised it. So Kagome had acknowledged him as pack. That made two agreed and two undecided. He felt Inuyasha's eyes on him from across the terrace, felt the wariness and regret and indecision in his last blood relative. The fates truly did hate him.

'Robin,' the communicator crackled. 'I've found Cyborg and the sword.'

'How is he?'

'Uhh…….remember the time we went to see who was trashing that communications station and that big ugly chased us all and the T-ship crashed on that planet with the big aliens and he went to pieces and I had to put him back together?'

'Ye-es,' Robin said carefully.

'Worse. Much much worse.'

'_How_ much worse, Beast Boy?' he snapped, keeping precarious hold on his rapidly fraying sanity. A long meaningful silence from the communicator.

'It's going to take months, Robin,' the Titan said finally. 'If it can be done at all. His head's been injured this time, and he's the only one who can repair himself.'

Robin covered his eyes for a second, closing them under the mask, his face twisting slightly. 'Okay. Leave Cy on the island and get the sword here. Out.' Robin clicked it shut as a distant green shape took wing from the rocks. 'So. We're short a Titan. Raven, take Kagome and go check out the library. If it is the place, let us know immediately. The rest of us are going to stock up on weapons and then follow you.'

'Robin. We don't have a weapons store anymore. It kind of blew up?'

The Boy Wonder stared at her as if she was stupid. 'Do you really think the tower was the only place I stashed stuff?'

'Heh,' Raven said sheepishly. 'All right then.'

'I'm not sure I should be going anywhere near Jinx,' Kagome said thoughtfully. 'I mean, if Trigon's there, and he captures us, he'll have all the shards but two.'

'Which is why you'll give me the shards until you get back.' Robin extended a gloved hand to her. The miko looked doubtfully at it.

'What makes you think I'll let you have the shards?' Inuyasha said suspiciously.

'Don't be a fool,' Robin snapped. 'I've no interest in these shards of yours. What's the matter, you afraid of me?'

Inuyasha's teeth bared. The Titan stared him down, irritated.

The hanyou snarled wordlessly before turning away. Kagome lifted the chain with the Shikon shards off her neck and handed it to him. 'Don't touch them,' she cautioned. 'And don't let anyone else take them.' The Titan nodded seriously.

'I think we'll stay here,' Miroku said. 'They might have need of our knowledge.' Kouga opened his mouth to say that he knew more than the monk, but Kagura stepped on his foot hard and he shut up. 'If I may have a word with you before I go, Kagome?'

'Of course, Miroku,' Kagome said warily. The monk looked serious, and that wasn't a good thing. A serious Miroku saw too much and said too little to be comfortable.

He knelt down on the terrace, dragging her down with him; pulled out a piece of chalk from somewhere in his robes and began writing swiftly on the concrete. Kagome was puzzled for a second before she understood. Writing was an effective way to keep Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru from listening in.

_What actually happened?_

_I don't know what you're talking about, Miroku. _

_Yeah, right. You're a lousy liar. _

_Does it matter? The information is accurate. _

_It matters. You wouldn't lie about what you learnt, but as to how you found out – who was it, Kagome? Was it Naraku?_

Kagome's face went tomato-red and her jaw dropped. 'H-h-how did–' she squeaked. Miroku raised an eyebrow and shushed her silently.

_If it had been anyone else, you would have told us. It's probably wiser that you didn't. I don't think the other two would accept it. That was your reason, right?_

_I hate you. _

_Thank you. I know. I love you, too. _

_Pervert,_ she wrote fondly._ Are you going to tell the others?_

_No, not if you don't want to. _

_Naraku said that if he could, he would strike at sunset. Do you know what he meant by that? _

_No, though it rings a bell. I'll think about it. _

Miroku stood up, erasing their conversation. 'Thank you, Kagome,' he said and smiled. Kagome threw him a grateful wink.

Behind her, Raven raised her hands. A stream of dark energy shrouded the others, settling into their bodies. 'Raven?' Beast Boy asked.

'It's what I did the last time. It should make you immune to the mass-spells Trigon casts. Remember what he did last time?' The Titan shivered. The entire world – and everyone in it – had been turned instantly to stone.

'Come on,' Raven said impatiently as she walked deliberately to the door leading inside the building. 'We're running out of time.'

'Aren't you going to fly?' Kagome asked, curious.

'In case you didn't notice, I'm tired. Public transportation sounds good right now.'

'Keh. Too slow.' Inuyasha was standing next to Kagome, hands tucked out of sight as always. 'Climb on, wench.'

'You'd spill her in a moment, you clumsy fool,' Sesshoumaru commented from across the terrace.

'I do not! I carry her all the time!'

'And how do you propose to carry Raven at the same time?'

'Eeh……' Inuyasha said, scratching his head.

'Oh, look, it's thinking. Stop before you get hurt,' the inuyoukai said as he stepped up next to them. 'Hn. I'll carry her.' He scooped Raven up in his arm, pinned her to his front and leaped off the roof. 'Race you there, brother!' he called. Inuyasha swore and leaped to the next roof as Kagome whooped and clutched his shoulders for dear life.

'We don't know the way!'

'I've got a map!' Kagome yelled.

_**Interlude the second: the hexer**_

_I'm in your mind, aren't I? Trigon?...Father? Or am I in mine? It doesn't matter. I don't like it in here. _

_I haven't been in control since I collapsed after bringing Sesshoumaru to the future. I'm not sure I'm all that concerned about it. I've falsified the second prophecy. The Lord of the Western Lands, Sesshoumaru – that was how the prophecy identified him. By removing him from Japan, I've ensured that the prophecy is annulled. Even if Trigon's found another body to occupy, it won't fulfill the conditions of the prophecy. He's lost the support of the heavens, and he will not succeed. I've done what I can, given Trigon's control over me, and I am content. _

_Well, not really. _

_I've begun seeing events now. I'm inside my own body, but not. I mean, I'm _looking_ at what happens to my body, but I'm not in there anymore. I killed Raven. I killed Sesshoumaru. I killed Vic. No. NO! It wasn't me! Yes it was, says His voice, taunting me. I scream defiance, but what good is defiance when your head's on the block? It is futile as a breeze in the face of a dead man. It was my hand that lifted to strike at him, my arm that blasted Titans' Tower to kingdom come, and my hand that shattered Vic into tiny pieces. Mine. My hand. That responsibility will haunt me for the rest of my days. Thank heavens they're few. I was weak and I couldn't resist. I fought for two weeks, but it wasn't enough. Raven, Vic, Sesshoumaru – I am sorry. _

'_Sesshoumaru?' _

_The voice isn't mine or Trigon's. Could it be possible for a soul to lift its head? If so, then I look up at the owner of the voice._

_It's a man, tall and slender and so handsome, he's almost pretty. But his red-brown eyes are cold beyond compare. I shiver. I've seen Trigon's raw power, and I've seen Slade's sophisticated deadliness, but this man sends a chill through me. His hard gaze bores into me unforgiving. _

'_You know the inuyoukai?' _

_Who is this man, and why is he – oh. Of course. He's the owner of Trigon's current body. I smile bitterly at him. I'm the only one who can understand exactly what he's going through. 'I brought him to the future. Trigon was trying to acquire his body.'_

'_And now he has mine instead. Girl, I would kill you a hundred times over for that if you weren't dead already.'_

'_We're both dead.'_

'_So we might as well dance,' he says with a sharp nod. Yes, we understand each other perfectly. _

'_Can you see outside events, girl?' he snaps. _

'_My name is Jinx. And yes, yes I can.' _

'_Good. When it is nightfall, call out. I will strike.'_

'_What is that supposed to mean?'_

_He doesn't reply; turns to leave. Desperate, I call out. 'Wait! Please! Don't leave me alone in here!'_

_He lifts a hand in agreement before sitting down next to me. _

A/N: Four chapters and an epilogue...and then done! Whale-form Beast Boy, I really love him. 'Two words, Beast Boy. Breath mints.'

Um, review, please. I am feeling unhugged by my readers. Failure to receive reviews before I update again will result in pathetically pleading four-line poems requesting them.

Review, Review / Oh where are you / I ask my readers / To give me my due...etc


	6. Divergence

**_Chapter thirteen: Divergence_**

So this is it, Miroku mused as he saw the demons streak off into Jump City. The grand finale. It doesn't feel very different.

Sango cleared her throat loudly. 'If we're going to be attracting youkai, shouldn't we get farther from the city? I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with so many people around….'

Well, that was an understatement. This time was incredibly crowded. Jostling rushing hurrying crowds that never seemed to end. Sometimes, Miroku longed for the peace of the Warring States Era.

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Kagome had never seen Inuyasha run this fast before.

Watching the two brothers race was interesting. Inuyasha leaped from one building to another, bouncing off them as if he were demonstrating pinball; Sesshoumaru ran on the ground instead, too fast for her to see well, but the mad honking, terrified screams and screeching brakes proved that he was making himself quite visible to the drivers on the road – for a microsecond, anyway. She sincerely hoped that none of them would have a heart attack or something. After all, Sesshoumaru could classify as an A-grade hallucination if you didn't know him. Add Raven to that, and well, cardiac arrest was a definite option.

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Inuyasha gritted his teeth and forced himself to run faster. His lungs were beginning to complain, and it was pure adrenaline that kept him running as he gained inexorably on Sesshoumaru. Damn it, he was built for stamina, not speed! They were almost level now. By sticking to the roof, he was presented with a clear path, whereas Sesshoumaru had to dodge and bound over obstacles. Which was galling, because it meant that that jerkface was actually faster than he was. In a burst of speed, he drew ahead and tossed a smirk at the youkai weaving through the evening rush hour below. Sesshoumaru might not see that smirk, but he'd definitely _feel_ it.

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The little shit was smirking. Sesshoumaru was quite certain he was. He twisted sideways to avoid a bus and in the next beat leaped clean over a taxi. Raven was suspiciously silent, but he could smell the adrenaline pouring off her. Well, at least she was still conscious.

He hadn't intended to wind up on the road, only to make a dramatic exit from the terrace they were on, but once that dratted brat took to the roofs, following would have been unmanly……. or unyoukaily. Whatever. Raven giggled weakly, and he was knew she'd caught that thought.

He chanced injury to look up, and cursed as he saw Inuyasha half a block ahead and in mid-leap. If he accelerated any further, even his reflexes wouldn't be good enough to avoid all the humans scurrying about their business………..since when was he considerate of them anyway? He was getting soft. Going senile, too, probably. It was just his luck that Inuyasha was around to see it.

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She was never going to enjoy rollercoasters again.

Not after experiencing the incredible rush of running (okay, being hugged by someone who was running) through rush-hour traffic at speeds that would have been illegal on a freeway, dodging cars and trucks and pedestrians. Knowing you could die at any moment, that your life was in the hands of someone else (who, moreover, had varying degrees of interest in your continued existence), that was the real attraction of those rides. Except that here, there was no rail, no safety bars, and the obstacles were real and very solid. It was unbelivably thrilling, and she could feel the restrained rumbling laughter in Sesshoumaru's chest as it pressed against her back. He was obviously enjoying it too. It was a really nice feeling. It lasted for all of nine seconds before he had to throw them both sideways to avoid the canopy of a shop, and she was forcibly reminded of the reason Sesshoumaru was carrying her in the first place.

It was getting harder to think. She had expended a tremendous amount of energy trying to hold back Jinx's blast and direct it upwards, and then she'd drowned, been resuscitated and given ten people portions of her power to safeguard them from Trigon's little Medusa trick. Four years ago, that would have literally killed her, but Raven had come a long way since then. Still, there was only so much she could force herself to do before her physical self gave out, and she was dangerously close to the limit. She had seen an illustration in a book of magic once that displayed what happened to those who drew too much energy into an inadequate body. It had been extremely graphic and……..memorable, to say the least; a starburst of energy and then disintegration into bits of tissue.

Well, they were almost at the library. If she could actually contain her fatigue until tomorrow, everything would be just fine. Either she'd be dead, or in a bed somewhere. Both options sounded acceptable as long as no movement, thought or words were required. In fact, dead was actually better since it lasted longer than sleep, and there was no chance of being woken by someone's dreams or by morning light blazing through the east window or by the communicators crackling as that maniac Robin called them out to train or by a cute white puppy dog ear flicking angrily as a dark eyebrow and amber eye filled her line of vision……….

–what?

'So nice of you to join us,' Inuyasha said in his usual harsh voice. 'What were you THINKING to fall asleep!' She cringed as his roar blasted into her unprotected ear.

'What the hell are you doing here?' Raven mumbled. Her back was cold. Why was her back cold, and why was she looking at the ceiling?

'Get away, Inuyasha,' Kagome said impatiently as she moved into Raven's line of vision. 'She doesn't need a temper tantrum. Raven, are you all right? What happened?'

'Not……..where's the hotel room?'

'Hotel room?' Inuyasha chimed in. 'What are you smoking?'

'Raven,' Kagome said with the cheery false smile reserved for invalids and lunatics, 'you're not in a hotel room. You're in the Jump City library with us. We came here to look for Trigon, remember?'

Oh. Trigon. 'I remember.' This time she didn't even try to get up. 'All right, which one of you is gonna carry me this time?' Being carried around like a baby rankled, but if the alternative was passing out every few minutes it was fine by her. Everything was warm and fuzzy with fatigue, and her thoughts were drifting. Pity she couldn't do the same.

'I'll do it,' Inuyasha offered. 'That fumblefoot would probably just drop you anyway. Look what he's done already.'

'Well, if you had done it–' Sesshoumaru began.

'Boys, boys, we can have this discussion later. Now, Inuyasha, pick her up and lead the way.' Sesshoumaru rumbled in discontent. 'I'm sure the burns on your back would welcome the rest. One of you should have your hands free, don't you think? And Raven looks like she could use a little less speed in travelling.'

Both brothers subsided. It was quite funny, Raven reflected. She had them both whipped and neither knew it. Subtle compliments worked so much better than orders.

Wait a minute. Did that mean that Kagome was……..that Ses-

'Ahem,' Inuyasha said pointedly as he crouched down in front of her. Kagome helped her onto his back, and they began to walk. Her face was right in front of his ears, which were twitching slightly. Unable to resist, she reached out a hand and caught one of them gently. It flicked away from her grasp.

'Wench!' Inuyasha yelped. 'Don't touch those!'

'But they're so soft,' she protested, while a part of her mind questioned her sanity. 'Besides, the world's ending today. Might as well have some fun, right?'

'Okay. Excuse me while Kagome and I go k–'

'Inuyashaaaa…….'

'What? She started it!'

They walked through the hollow hallways of the library to the dead end that led to the secret chamber. 'Does anything look familiar?' Raven asked Kagome.

The girl shook her head. 'It seems like the kind of place that would lead to the room I saw, but I……I'm not sure. Gah!' For a moment, she sounded very like Inuyasha as she threw her hands in the air, exasperated.

'Does this help?' said Raven, stepping up to the wall. It glowed with Trigon's mark, flaming runes, before it dropped away to reveal a passage. 'So. You still acknowledge me, do you, Trigon? Or didn't you have the time to change the spells?'

Kagome drew in a deep breath. 'The youki here……..It's incredibly strong.'

'Trigon,' Sesshoumaru said flatly. 'He's not here, but he has been.'

'Hah! What does it matter? We're going to kill him anyway,' said Inuyasha.

'Less talking and more action, little brother. I won't ask you to think, since you're obviously incapable of it.'

'OI!'

'It's here,' Kagome said, stopping the quarrel before it could begin. 'It's not the place h…I saw, but it's close. Inuyasha, can you see the bottom?'

'Heh. No.'

'What about you, Sessh-'

'He can see even less than I can, or you,' Inuyasha said. 'Dogs have bad eyesight, and I guess this is one thing where being hanyou is a bit of an advantage over you, right, ugly?'

Sesshoumaru merely Looked at him.

They began to walk down the flight of stairs that led to the chamber. 'That's funny,' Raven mused aloud. 'There used to be a group of guardian wraiths here.'

'Well, maybe they aren't here anymore?' Kagome suggested.

Pale, ghostly apparitions phased through the walls. Wings stretched and fangs bared as they took in the group that had infiltrated their resting place.

'You just had to say it, didn't you?' said Inuyasha, giving her a dirty look. He drew Tetsusaiga and slashed at a wraith, which was quite unconcerned.

Sesshoumaru calmly sheathed Toukijin and drew Tenseiga, carving through a few wraiths without really moving. Beside Inuyasha, Kagome stooped to pick up a stone before throwing it at a cluster of wraiths. Raven opened her mouth to tell her they were incorporeal…….then shut it as the stone began to glow a bright pink in midair, blowing up its targets.

'Not as effective as an arrow,' Kagome said smugly, 'but it'll do just fine.' Inuyasha and Raven, who were both ineffective in this battle, shot her a Look.

Sesshoumaru and Kagome moved through the wraiths quickly, killing quite a few before the others retreated, shrieking soundlessly as they waited for their prey to slip up.

'How come his sword has them all scared?' Raven mumbled to Inuyasha as he carried her further down the stairs.

'Tenseiga works against the undead.' Sesshoumaru's eyes never left the wraiths as he replied. His brother snorted.

'Yeah, and did I mention it can't cut butter unless it's from a zombie cow?' Inuyasha chimed in helpfully. 'He really burst a bunch of blood vessels when the old man left him that sword, I can tell you.'

'Insolent half-breed…….(snarl)'

'Ah-ah-ah, I've got a passenger,' Inuyasha said gleefully. 'Can't risk Rae-Rae's life….'

'Call me that and die.'

'Kagome, silence this fool, or I shall not be responsible for…'

'Inuyashaaa………'

'All right, all right!'

Oh yeah, Raven thought. Really whipped. Both of them.

The walk to the chamber took forever and a minute. When they finally reached the base, Kagome's gasp spoke more eloquently than anything else she might have said.

'So this is it, then,' Inuyasha said.

'Yeah,' said Raven, eyeing the giant stone hand that arched palm upwards to the ceiling. Four years ago, she had hovered over that palm and opened the portal to let her father into the mortal world – and died in the process. A part of her, at any rate. It wasn't a terribly nice memory to be reliving, and when she caught Sesshoumaru's eye she realised just how weird her expression must be. 'So what do we do now?'

'I will wait for Trigon here,' Sesshoumaru announced. 'If this is where he will be resurrected, then he will come here soon.'

'I'm staying too,' Raven said immediately. 'And so should the two of you. We're the strongest fighters here; the others' powers don't work so well against Trigon.'

'The jewel shards……' Kagome said worriedly. 'I have to get them back before evening then. They lend more power to my arrows, and…….drat. I need a bow, too.'

'There's no rush,' Raven said evenly. 'The portal opens at moonrise. We have nearly four hours to get everyone here and prepare for the battle. Of course, if Trigon and Jinx's body come here before then…….'

'Damn, you're optimistic,' Inuyasha commented.

'He'll find us anywhere. What difference does it make where we wait for him?'

'Refer to the previous sentence.'

'Words with two syllables? You're improving, brother.'

Inuyasha growled, but distractedly. 'I'm going to kill you for that, flea-brain.'

'In our next life, perhaps. In this one, _I_, and only I, am allowed to kill you. Remember that, Inuyasha.'

They were delaying leaving, Raven knew. Damned stubborn men. Youkai, whatever. They were male, and the inherent stupidity of the gender was obvious.

'Are you going to swallow your pride and actually tell each other to be careful, or will gratuitous death threats suffice?' she inquired dryly.

Both took a step back at her words, white hair swishing indignantly around amber eyes, arms (or arm) crossing across chests, faces twisting into an identical grimace of disgust, brows creasing. They looked more alike at that moment than she had ever seen them. She didn't say it, though, having an intense desire to survive the next three seconds.

'Keh!' said Inuyasha, giving up first. 'Kagome. Hop on and I'll take you back to the Tower.' The miko shook her head and climbed up on his back.

'Take care, Sesshoumaru. You too, Raven,' she said with a worried brave smile before the hanyou leapt upwards and out of the chamber.

'I swear, that girl is a saint.'

'Hn?'

Raven turned to Sesshoumaru, amused and irritated. 'How she can put up with the two of you is beyond me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to meditate for a while. You're welcome to be bored as much as you like.'

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When Kagome and Inuyasha reached the harbour, none of the others were in sight. Inuyasha sniffed at the air for a second.

'Stop it, wench,' he said, knowing without looking that there was a look of goofy bliss on her face. She had a curious fascination with the way his nose twitched. It was even worse than her obsession with his ears.

'Aww,' she complained with an unrepentant grin.

He caught that wimpy wolf's scent again, mixed with the wind user's. He sneezed. That was one mating he was never going to get used to. Mating Naraku's spawn, freed or not, was freaky, to use these Titans' words. He sneezed again; Kagome giggled.

'What?' he snapped at her.

'You sneeze like a…..like a dog!' she wheezed between chuckles.

'It's not funny!' he protested.

'Sorry,' she said, still giggling. 'It's just, I never heard you sneeze like that before. It's exactly like…..' And whatever she thought, it set her off all over again until she collapsed on his back with mirth, clutching his shoulders for support as he flew through the air.

'You're crazy,' he grumbled, but he could feel her laughter ripple through him, sparking his own, warming him and filling his heart. Impulsively, he leaned his head back against hers until they were almost cheek to cheek, a rare true smile breaking through. 'Kagome,' he half-whispered. He didn't say anything more, but from her suddenly indrawn breath and the way she nuzzled back into his hair – and the pure joy that he could feel in her – he knew she understood.

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After the third nightmare, Raven gave up on sleeping. Even floating over the stone floor, it was uncomfortable. Meditating wasn't useful either. She was tired enough to cry, except she was too stubborn to do it.

What made things worse was the infinite patience with which Sesshoumaru was waiting, sitting on a fallen slab (one she had used to create a Slade sandwich the last time she had been in here) in a pose reminiscent of Inuyasha, long fingers curled around Tenseiga. He hadn't moved a muscle that she could notice in the last hour. His eyes were fixed on her, making her even more twitchy.

'So, this pack thing,' she said finally, stretched out wearily over the stone floor. 'If I'm your pack, that makes you part of mine by default, right?'

'Not necessarily,' he replied after a pause. 'If you acknowledge it, I will know.'

'Oh.' She thought about it. 'So why didn't I-'

'Wrong kind of demon. Besides, you're hanyou. Nobody could have told you, even if you could have sensed it.'

She sighed and turned restlessly before giving up and sitting crosslegged, drawing her cloak around her. A few minutes passed.

'Raven.'

She looked up at him.

'How did you defeat him if he was so much stronger than you then?'

'How did I defeat him?' Raven smiled thinly. 'It's quite simple. At birth – at conception, actually – Trigon divided my emotions into different aspects; Happy, Brave, Rage, Wisdom among others. He linked my powers to them, so that if I felt anything, things around me went out of control. He thought I would never learn to control my powers; but I did. The Azarathian mirror, the one Rin fell into, it helped me contact and empathise with my different emotions until I could begin to truly feel. Still, before I joined the Titans, I was a shell, afraid to feel because I might damage others. In Azarath, I was an outcast, tolerated because I would be a danger if they alienated me. My mother…….I was a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her. Anyway, after I joined the Titans, I began to feel more and more. And I discovered something that could defeat my father – unity of purpose. On two occasions, my emotions came together perfectly, making me completely normal – and incredibly powerful. The first time was within my mirror-mind, against Trigon. It was Beast Boy's idea, actually.' She smiled slightly. 'Who would have thought it. The second time…it was a mistake. I thought someone….was something he was not.'

'You don't have to talk about it if you do not wish to,' Sesshoumaru reminded her.' You owe me nothing, Raven.'

'No, it's okay, really.' And it actually was. 'If all my emotions work together, it gives me much more strength than action through calmness, which is what controls my power. But I can't really use it that often.'

'Why?'

'Oh, yes. Work with absolute emotion and unity of purpose against Plasmus, or while playing stankball. Yeah, right. Lazy would rebel, and Rage would be beating on the others while Wisdom wondered what she was required for……aah. I don't even want to think about that. Well, when I fought Trigon, I was able to harmonise myself, and I hit him with everything I had. He died, and I unwound time until everything returned to normal.' his eyebrows had climbed steadily throughout the last few sentences, and she caught his expression. 'It wasn't that much, really. I did it unconsciously.'

'And this transformation of yours, what happens when you are in harmony?' His red-striped hand made a graceful gesture on the word "harmony".

'It's easy to notice. Everything I wear turns white.'

'Yes, that would be noticeable,' he said, eyeing her ink-coloured cloak. 'So will you turn white tonight?'

'It's not something I control. -Damn it, why can't I sleep!'

He watched, amused, as she twitched irritably. 'And don't look so smug! I'm _tired_! Why don't you try helping for a change?'

'I suppose I could come over and choke you until you slipped into unconsciousness,' he offered with a straight face. She looked at him doubtfully for a second before deciding that he was joking. She hoped.

Then she got an idea. 'Say, Sesshoumaru,' she said. 'I just figured out how to sleep comfortably on this floor.'

'I don't think I'm going to like this…….'

An evil smile curled her lips.

A/N: well, a rather light chapter. I so want to grab Inuyasha's ears myself. They are TOO cute! So I allowed Kagome and Raven to do it instead.

Points to anyone who can guess what the last line indicates!


	7. Nightmares and miasma

**_Chapter fourteen: Nightmares and miasma. _**

'Youkai,' Kagura announced suddenly as the others emerged from the bunker where Robin stored his spares. 'One. It….'

'For the love of little green apples, it's dog-breath!'

Everyone stared at Kouga.

'Little green apples?' Robin said finally.

To the time travellers' surprise, Kagura and Kouga both blushed violently. 'Long story. Really long,' the Wind User said sheepishly.

Inuyasha landed smoothly among them, still smiling a little, though it slipped right off his face when he saw Kouga. 'Keh. Wolf.'

'Dog-boy,' the ookami returned with equal dislike. 'Now I know why my nose was giving me pain.'

'Well, it won't hurt anymore if I cut your head off–'

'Act your age, imbeciles,' Kagura snapped, smacking him up the head with her fan. (A/N: Saiyuki Reload moment, anyone?)

'Don't any of these guys ever act normal?' Beast Boy whispered to Miroku.

'Define normal,' the monk replied.

'Good point.'

'Hey, where's Rin?' Kagome said. The little girl was conspicuously missing, and Kagome kind of missed the leg-hugging.

'We left her with the Police Commissioner,' Robin said. 'It doesn't really get more safe than the Jump City police headquarters, and they're used to hosting people for us.'

'Sesshoumaru won't like that,' Inuyasha predicted.

'While he'll be just peachy if we go off to face a horde of youkai who might outnumber us with his kid, you say? Well, well. So is everyone stocked up? Kagome, I believe you'll want this?' He tossed her a quiver full of arrows and a sturdy bow.

'You do think of everything,' she said.

'(cough)controlfreak(cough),' Beast Boy mumbled behind them.

'At least I'm not a grass stain with attitude problems,' Robin shot back.

'I've got a problem, all right. It's four feet tall and smells like cheap hair gel!'

Robin froze. A second later, Beast Boy and Starfire did, too. That had always been Cyborg's line.

'All right,' he said harshly after a second. 'This isn't the time. J-Trigon could reach the library any time now. Let's go.'

'Not so fast.' That voice definitely didn't belong to any of them.

They all turned to face the direction the voice had come from. A man stood about six feet away from them, leaning against a sturdy pine. He was dressed in an outfit that looked like a tracksuit of pure unrelieved white. His features flickered wildly, as did the colour of his shoulder-length hair, but his eyes remained the same. They were different shades of green, with no whites or pupils to them. The effect was such that looking into them created a falling sensation. His hands were tucked into his pockets.

'And who the hell are you?' Inuyasha spat, going into I'll-kill-you mode instantly. 'And why don't you have a scent?'

'I'm your death,' the man said calmly.

'That's my line, swamp-eyes!' Inuyasha growled.

'One of Trigon's creatures?' Robin was worried, though he wasn't showing it.

'What do you want to bet this guy's worse than Slade?' Beast Boy murmured.

'It doesn't matter,' Starfire said softly. 'We're going to kill him, and then we're going back to the library and we're going to finish Trigon, too.'

He looked at the Tamaranean, troubled. After the attack on the Tower, she had barely spoken. Her red hair was crackling with sparks of green and there was a steely anger in them that none of them had ever seen. Even in the battle against Blackfire, she hadn't been this furious. And she never, ever, ever said that she wanted to kill anyone.

'My name is Nightmare, and I am going to kill you.'

Kagura sneered magnificently at him. 'Your conversation is both boring and repetitive,' she said, because it was. Tetsusaiga flared golden as Inuyasha and Kouga readied themselves as well. 'Get back to the library. I'll take care of this nut by myself.'

'I'm sorry, but I can't permit that.' Nightmare's eyes narrowed, and one hand left its pocket faster than a snake, fist uncurling to reveal a handful of red powder. He flung it into their faces before they could react.

The youkai, who were nearest him, caught the powder full-on. Two more handfuls followed, hitting the humans (and alien) squarely. One handful fell squarely on Miroku's face. They choked as they breathed it in, unable to stop.

Nightmare knelt down next to Inuyasha, whose eyes were already closing. With a supreme act of willpower, the hanyou forced his fingers around Tetsusaiga before falling limp again. 'I suppose that, compared to the other spawn of Naraku you have fought, I am insignificant in physical power. But I know everything about the body, human or youkai. This poison I carry is more powerful than anything you have ever faced.'

Inuyasha struggled for consciousness. Next to him, Kouga had already gone still.

'Do you know that your body responds to the dreams you have? That your heartbeat, respiration and perspiration all increases as you dream? All I have to do is give you a nightmare and remove your ability to wake. As your fear increases, so will the speed of your heart. It works on everyone. I imagine it will take you youkai longer, but soon, your heart will implode under the pressure of the nightmare you'll be in. Sleep, hanyou. May you have bitter dreams. Don't count on waking up.'

He closed the golden eyes almost gently and resumed his post by the tree, waiting for death. Theirs.

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Across town, Raven stirred restlessly.

'Is something wrong?' Sesshoumaru inquired acidly. After giving her his fluffy pelt, she had promptly fallen asleep, while he sat on the palm of the stone hand and thought bitter thoughts about pack-feel and manipulative female hanyou with puppy eyes.

'Maybe. I'm not sure. Something feels off.'

Sesshoumaru shifted. 'Go if you wish. I will not leave this place until I kill Trigon.'

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Nightmare waited patiently as his prey lay silently dying. Their eyelids were twitching and when he placed a finger on their wrist, their pulse was racing madly. Through his connection to them via the poison, he felt it clearly when the first one's heart stopped. It was the red-haired girl. Nightmare frowned. She had died very quickly, almost an hour before a human would have. Maybe it was her alien constitution.

'_So long, sister!' Blackfire said with an evil smile. The broken bodies of the Titans lay all about them, and Starfire thrashed uselessly at her handcuffs, hyperventilating, fear clogging her mind as her sister powered up a starbolt not unlike her own, and her vision blanked out as something exploded in her chest and she felt herself fall………_

'Pity,' Nightmare mused. 'She died so quickly.' He turned away from her body and bent to check the monk's pulse. Yes, he was coming along nicely.

A starbolt hit him in the back, turning him around, breaking a rib and flinging him through several trees. The alien girl, glowing with power, powered up another green bolt, her eyes completely opaque with green brilliance. The second one hit him in the chest, destroying most of his body. 'H……how?' he croaked.

He died in absolute disbelief.

Starfire stepped up to him and hit him with another starbolt just in case.

'Tamaraneans have more than one heart, you idiot,' she said. 'So I guess you didn't know your anatomy after all.'

The glow faded from her eyes and hands, and suddenly she was the sweet and slightly clueless Titan again. She ran to the Titans, shaking them, calling out, slapping them lightly. None of them responded. She turned her communicator on.

'Raven! Raven, are you there?'

The communicator crackled for a second with static before the empath's dry monotone responded. 'Starfire. What's wrong?'

Starfire told her as quickly as she could.

'All right. I'll be there as soon as I can.'

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Raven snapped the communicator shut and rose to her feet, weariness washed away temporarily in a wave of fear and adrenaline. She prepared to turn into her soul self, but Sesshoumaru grabbed the neck of her cloak, stopping her.

What was it with him and her cloak anyway?

'What do you think you're doing?'

'I'm going to help my friends, if that's all right with you!' she flared.

'That's precisely what Trigon expects. The minute you leave here, he will attack.'

'I don't care!'

'If you heal them – if – you'll be too weak to fight. Do you really wish to die today?'

'No. And I won't lose them either!'

'Fine, then. I'll go.'

'_What_?'

'Are you deaf? I said I'll go. I am a poison youkai.'

'You're serious,' she said in disbelief. 'You're actually going to pass up a chance to kill Trigon to help a bunch of people you barely know?'

He looked away. 'My priorities have changed. And there are people in that group that……matter to me. Besides, I can always kill Trigon later.' And before she could respond, he transformed into his energy form and vanished through the open doorway.

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_The worst memory of her life played out before Sango over and over, and there was no buffer of time or healing to stop it. _

_Kohaku's blade rose to end Kagome's life, and suddenly they were fighting in the woods again, her sword against his sickle and chain, and her heart was pounding in her chest with fear and grief and anger and her breaths were uneven and rapid. Finally, she pinned him to the ground and, sobbing, raised the sword above her head to stab it into his body. And this time, there was no Inuyasha to strike the blade from her hand. The sword plunged into his body with eerie slowness, and then she turned it on herself just as she had promised and thenKohaku's blade rose to end Kagome's life, and suddenly they were fighting in the woods again, her sword against his sickle and chain………_

_And then, suddenly, the dream faded in a burst of white-hot pain, and the taijiya sank gratefully into a deep healing sleep. _

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Starfire, who had been expecting Raven, was surprised when Sesshoumaru arrived instead. The youkai's eyes swept the place once.

'Where is Rin?'

'She's in Jump City. Can you……are you…….here to help?'

'Tcheh,' he said before gliding over to his brother. He knelt beside Inuyasha and sniffed delicately at the red powder on his face; swiped his forefinger across the residue and licked it.

'It's poisonous,' Starfire warned him. She shut up immediately when she was placed on the receiving end of a DeathGlare™.

He closed his eyes for a second, concentrating on the poison slipping down his throat, analysing its properties. The antibody formed within seconds, and he focused it on the poison. Once he was sure it was gone, he focused the antidote on his fingertips.

Starfire yelped in alarm as Sesshoumaru slashed his brother's chest with his glowing fingers. 'What are you doing to him!'

'Curing him, you nitwit. Check his pulse.' Starfire did. Sure enough, it was slowing down. His erratic breathing was calming, though he still made no noise.

'How did you survive?' Sesshoumaru inquired casually as he sliced into Kagome's side. There was surprisingly little blood, and the cuts were smooth and clean as a surgeon's incision. 'I…….have more than one heart……the poison ran out after one heart exploded. I hadn't inhaled enough to kill me.' She turned her back as Sesshoumaru 'applied' the antidote to Robin and Beast Boy.

The Titan shivered. Ally or not, cure or not……..watching him cut people up with such ease and…..practice…..was terrifying. 'Do you really have to do that?'

'Would you prefer to watch them die? That can be arranged.' Sesshoumaru stood up, his dress as immaculate as ever, without any trace of having knelt on the ground. 'They should be back to normal in an hour. For the humans, maybe two or three.' And then he transformed into his energy form and zipped off without another word.

Starfire stared after him. 'Just plain freaky……' she mumbled before she sat down heavily on the grass next to the Titans. Now that the urgency of the situation had faded, the pain in her chest was clawing at her. She closed her eyes for a second.

Just a second………..

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Raven was asleep when Sesshoumaru returned, and she was floating slightly above the floor, still wrapped up in the fluff. He supposed that meant she was healing. The empath's magic was strange at times.

He settled down again to wait for Trigon. What was taking him so long? Was he making more incarnations, like Naraku had? Now that was a chilling thought. Some of Naraku's spawn were…….quite troublesome; with Trigon's power added to the mix, they had the potential to be dangerous.

The communicator beeped a while later, and he waited for Raven to wake up. She just mumbled something with the word 'die' in it before rolling over in midair and beginning to snore gently. He huffed and picked it up.

'Ra-oh, it's you,' Inuyasha said, annoyed.

'Why are you using this?'

'Why are you?'

'……she's asleep.'

His brother smirked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Sesshoumaru carefully repressed the urge to snarl and coldly inquired what the matter was.

'Is Trigon there yet? Kagome wants to know.'

'Of course he's here, you moron. He's being resurrected right now, while I talk to an ass.'

'Why, are you talking to yourself?' Inuyasha shot back immediately.

'Funny, very funny,' Sesshoumaru complimented him through gritted teeth. 'Well, as you may have noticed, he is not here. Now go away.' And he snapped the communicator shut and replaced it in Raven's cloak. She stirred as he did, poking herself in the eye as she rubbed the sleep from it.

'How long have I been out?' she said in a sleep-blurry voice.

'Two, almost three hours.' Sesshoumaru yanked the fluff from her, eliciting a soft cry of protest as she found herself tumbled unceremoniously to the floor six inches below. He inspected her former bedding and picked a lavender hair off it with one claw, absolutely disgusted. And was that drool on it? Ohhhh. 'Remind me never to let you do this again. Are you still near your limit?'

She sat up and stretched, looking more alert. 'I don't think I am, not anymore. The sleep really helped.'

Sesshoumaru sniffed the air routinely, and stiffened.

Raven was on her feet, crackling with energy. She knew even before he said it.

'He's coming.'

The communicator crackled. 'Raven? It's Kagome. We're under attack.'

A/N: _'Your conversation is both boring and repetitive,' she said, because it was._ Any reviewer who can name the quote gets a special mention in the next chapter. In **bold**. Hint: it's from a famous sci-fi series about a crook who becomes a cop.


	8. Time

_**Fifteen: Time **_

'What the hell is that?' Kouga said as he stared into the sky.

They had just loaded the humans, who were still unconscious, onto Kagura's feather and were just preparing to take off. Starfire was unconscious as well, and she was bleeding internally. He could smell the blood. He only hoped she wasn't dying.

'Youkai,' the Wind User said sombrely. The sky was darkening with their aura. There were many. Maybe too many.

'Inuyasha,' Kagome said weakly, stirring and nearly rolling off the feather. The hanyou was there in an instant, his attention divided between her and the approaching swarm. 'I have to get to the library. Whatever happens, I have to be there by nightfall.'

'Why–' he began, but her eyes stopped him, wide and frightened but determined as always. She knew what she was doing. 'All right. But what about them?'

'Kouga,' she called softly. Inuyasha tensed as the wolf youkai came over to her. At least he wasn't clutching her hand anymore. 'Kagura, get the others out, and Kouga, keep the youkai from coming after me. I have to reach Jump City right now.' He nodded grimly.

'You aren't strong enough to hold on to my back,' Inuyasha protested.

'Carry me,' she said, sounding more awake.

'You're wasting time, dog breath,' Kouga spat, readying himself.

Inuyasha caught her up in his arms and began to run.

Kouga watched them go. He placed himself between the swarm and the humans and turned to his mate. 'Ready?'

She shrugged before unfolding her fans. 'Finally,' she breathed, and raised them high over her head.

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'Are they still following us?' Kagome said, trying to peep over Inuyasha's shoulder without actually moving. At the speed they were travelling, any wriggling could throw him off balance; and while the poison in her system was being destroyed, she was still sleepy. Not to mention the cut on her chest was on fire.

'Can't smell them.' Inuyasha landed smoothly on one foot and then leapt again. 'That damn poison's messed up my senses.'

'Kouga can take care of them,' Kagome said confidently. Inuyasha twitched. 'Oh, come on, he might make you jealous but he's quite capable in a fight and you know it. The others should be waking up soon, it'll be all right.'

'So spit it out.'

Now she was definitely awake. 'What?'

'Why do you need to be in the library? You're not telling me something, Kagome.' His eyes never left the trees they were passing through, or the rapidly growing skyline of Jump City; but she could feel the intensity in his question. 'I thought we agreed not to do that.'

'You're right. I'm not.' She prayed she was making the right choice. 'I can't tell you what it is just yet. I may be completely wrong. Please, Inuyasha. Just……trust me on this one, okay?'

After a long moment, he huffed, irritated. 'All right. But your plan better work, Kagome.'

She nodded and picked up the communicator. 'Raven? We're under attack…….'

Raven's voice came through clearly. 'So are we. Trigon's here.'

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Robin wasn't possessed of superpowers like the rest of his team. He was an ordinary human. Well, not all that ordinary. His detective skills had been honed by the best on the planet, he had training from all over the world, and he had a natural stubbornness and drive to win that kept him going once strength gave out. He also had a feel for evil, an innate instinct that prickled and warned when he was in danger.

Right now, it wasn't prickling and warning. It was stabbing and screeching and running around in small circles.

He opened an eye – who'd put Superglue on it, he wondered blearily – and then the other flew open on its own as he took in the giant swarm of youkai who were assaulting them. Where had they all come from? He wobbled onto his knees and peered up at the sky. There were thousands of them. There couldn't possibly be, he thought through the fuzz in his mind. He was having double vision, right? Or sextuple, septuple or octuple (were those even words?) or something. More blurry shapes resolved into the other Titans and Miroku and Sango on the ground, knocked out. None of them had any twins lying next to them. Reluctantly, the Boy Wonder concluded that yes, there were several thousand youkai attacking them.

Which brought him to why he wasn't in the happy hunting grounds yet. Kouga and Kagura were defending them, attacking the youkai. As he watched, the wolf youkai leapt up into the air as Kagura sent bladelike glowing arcs into the midst of the milling creatures. He changed angle in midair, ricocheting off the blunt side of the wind blade, and kicked a snakelike thing into pieces.

They weren't all attacking at once, Robin realised as his wits returned. They were coming down in batches, attacking and dying methodically while the others waited and circled with infinite unnatural patience. They were waiting for the youkai to tire, and when they did…….they were already slowing down.

He staggered upright, fighting the sleep off. He'd endured worse and taken it better and he was _not_ going to let some stupid poison stop him now.

'Kag…….ura,' he rasped out. A passing youkai noticed him for his efforts and swooped down, jaws wide enough to swallow him whole. His reflexes (and his height, or lack thereof) saved him as he ducked to the side and brought his staff/sword up sharply as he twisted, stabbing it under the chin. It looked stupidly surprised for a second before it exploded, leaving no trace behind. Robin whistled softly. Those spells Miroku put on his bo staff really packed a punch. His chest really hurt. He looked down and was startled to see a long slice across his chest. Had that Nightmare guy cut him? Why?

The Wind User noticed him just then. She brought that fan she used arcing down into the air, sending a wave of wind-blades at him. Past him, rather, to cut down a youkai he hadn't noticed. 'Watch your back!' she yelled before turning back to fight the next incoming set. No other youkai were after him, for hich he was profoundly grateful.

Sango was standing up, too. She looked a lot less sleepy than he was. She'd been standing to the rear of the group, after all. She hefted Hiraikotsu and threw it over Kagura's head, the giant boomerang cutting cleanly through several youkai. Robin stared. He knew her weapon was sharp, but this……

'Waiting for something?' Sango gritted as the boomerang came flying back to her.

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'He's early,' Raven said, floating over to Sesshoumaru. 'I expected him to come just in time for nightfall, but…..'

Sesshoumaru said nothing. His nose could clearly pick out the combined miasma-and-sulfur stench of Trigon in Naraku's body. It was approaching, and quickly. He could feel the darkness in him/them. He had never possessed such darkness. No matter what, he had held on to his honour, and he had nothing but contempt for those weak enough to allow their basest nature to rule them.

This one, though, was not weak in other aspects.

Neither of them could take on Trigon alone. He was sure of that. He had already failed once, and even if Raven had banished him once, she hadn't killed him. besides, who knew what had happened to Trigon's powers once he had entered Naraku's body. The spider-marked hanyou was an enigma at best.

'Something's changing,' Raven said worriedly. 'I can sense huge amounts of magic being manipulated. He's doing something, and I can't tell………'

A tremor ran through the stone at their feet. Then another. The stone walls shivered and broke apart. Raven had just enough time to erect a barrier before the old Jump City library ceased to exist for the second time in its unfairly eventful life.

When she dropped the barrier, huge boulders lay all about them, and the late afternoon sun was beating down on their heads. And Trigon's laughter was resounding through the eerily empty square.

'Trigon,' Sesshoumaru snapped icily. The demon inclined his head in response. It was eerie, the inuyoukai reflected, to feel two auras, smell two scents in one body. It was Naraku's body, his face, but it was strangely stretched, strained, as if it was trying to hold in something that it couldn't. Which was the case. His eyes were solid crimson, and there were four of them, two where the eyes were normally and two suspended above. Like Jinx's had been.

'How are you, daughter?' Trigon rasped. It wasn't Naraku's voice at all. For all his evil, the hanyou's voice was smooth, even silky. This voice was slightly distorted, deep.

'Don't call me that,' Raven whispered intensely, defined in black energy, white seeping into her clothes as she felt herself harmonise with all her emotions. A bitter part of her noted that only in these situations could she ever fulfil herself emotionally. 'Don't you dare call me that, you monster. You have no right.'

'So you insist,' the demon said.

Sesshoumaru was becoming rapidly irritated with the whole business. He hated being ignored as if he were trivial.

'You are not worthy of my notice, foolish youkai,' the demon rumbled.

'He's a_ telepath?_'Sesshoumaru said incredulously. Trigon smirked.

'Where do you think I got my powers from?' Raven said. He stared at her. 'You mean you didn't know?'

Sesshoumaru winced. He looked almost…….sheepish.

Trigon laughed deep in Naraku's chest (A/N: now that was weird to write), which instantly wiped the grimace off his face.

'You're early, _Trigon_,' Raven spat. 'It's still daytime.'

'Is it?' the demon said with mock surprise. 'But not for long.' Trigon's arms raised high into the sky, and his four eyes glowed as he chanted an incantation. 'I am the master of time. Behold my power!'

An unearthly wind began to rise, a wind that moaned and shrieked until all they could hear was its piercing wail. Sesshoumaru's hand twitched to cover his ears. The few cirrus clouds in the sky, deceptive omens of fair weather, raced into the horizon, casting swift shadows on the ground. Comprehension dawned on him, painfully slow. The sun was moving towards the west unnaturally fast.

'This is what he was planning,' Raven said softly. 'To turn it to night. To make it time.'

Sesshoumaru snarled and unsheathed Toukijin, blurring forward to strike at Trigon. Ten feet from him, the inuyoukai slammed into a red barrier that threw him back several feet. He flipped in midair, landing gracefully on his feet – and opening a few burns that hadn't healed fully yet. Toukijin flew into the air and landed with a clatter near Raven.

'A barrier…..' he hissed. 'Where's that idiot brother of mine when he's actually needed?'

Trigon continued to chant, and the sun inched towards the west, and time ticked away.

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'The sun…….' Inuyasha said, vaguely puzzled. 'Is it moving…….?'

They were near the outskirts of the city, and the hanyou slowed, puzzled, as he saw the star moving westwards faster than it should.

'What has he done?' Kagome said, awed, as they passed one of the major highways. The cars shot past them at preternatural speeds, speeds nearing an aeroplane's. 'Everything's too fast.'

'Too fast. Of course, that's it!' Inuyasha's eyes brightened. 'He's trying to turn time faster until it's nightfall. Raven's magic must have kept the same from happening to us.'

The miko's eyes closed, dismayed, for a second. 'You do realise what this means, don't you?'

She snapped the communicator open.

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'But why?'

'Simple physics,' Robin explained grimly to Sango. 'When two objects collide, their velocities are added to make the speed at which they hit each other. Which means that if something which travels at 20kmph meets something that travels at sixty, the speed of the collision is actually 80kmph. If a hummingbird hit us right now, it would be fast enough to kill on contact.'

'In short,' Kouga said, 'Until Trigon stops moving time, these things are going to be fast. Hellishly fast.'

The howling wind Kagome had warned them of finally reached them, and everything went crazy immediately after that.

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It was eerily silent in the ruins of the library. The only sound was Trigon's chanting, the wind, which had dropped soon after it rose, and Sesshoumaru's almost soundless snarling. In the void, Raven could hear her own heartbeat.

They had both tried to break the barrier he had erected several times before giving up and simply waiting. The sun moved inexorably to the horizon.

The first bird-turned-projectile had startled Raven, and might have killed her if it wasn't for her hastily erected barrier. The bird had been stunned by the barrier, and had fallen unconscious at her feet. She had levitated it far away. It was the least she could do. After that, she had blocked the entire area away with a barrier.

According to the time of day – which Raven had decided never to trust again – it was early evening. There were perhaps five or six minutes to nightfall.

Nightfall…….and resurrection.

Before the thought had time to sink in and really piss her off, Raven felt one side of her barrier being ripped apart with no subtlety whatsoever. She recognised Trigon's aura immediately, mixed though it was with another.

Jinx. She was almost transparent, and everything inside her glowed with magical light, turning her into a ghost of flame. Raven could only pray that the girl was as unaware of her body as she presumed she was.

Four eyes sought the empath. Two cleared, and for an instant Raven met Jinx's eyes. She nodded; the hexer shook her head slightly and the crimson returned. It was enough for the empath to understand what she had said.

_I'm sorry. _

And _don't hesitate. _

Turning her back on her allies, the lavender-haired girl walked stiffly through the debris, heading for the giant hand that Raven had once opened a portal from. Raven could only watch as Jinx floated up to its palm and spread her arms.

And dissolved.

_**Interlude the third: Assimilation**_

_Naraku watched dispassionately as the girl's face changed. Whatever she was seeing, it wasn't pretty. Her eyes were wide, and horrified. He felt no pity, but there was a twinge of………understanding………in some forgotten corner of his self. _

_The girl whispered 'He's going to kill me now.'_

_Now that was a pity. She was the first person he'd met in a month, and he really did like to talk, even if his company was dead, created, or otherwise unintelligent. The other half of the conversation was irrelevant, but talking to empty air was said to be a sign of madness, was it not?_

_Pure evil, yes, and he was proud of it; but he wasn't going to let anyone call him crazy. _

_Well, he was going to die in a few hours himself, so he probably wouldn't have time to notice her absence. Naraku gathered all the shards of his self together – he seemed to be gathering all sorts of shards lately, a manically amused part of him observed, it was becoming an obsession – and waited. _

_What was that? _

_-Naraku-_

_-Naraku!-_

_Kikyou? No, no, it wasn't her. It was that little ninny of a reincarnation of hers. Was it time then? But his inner clock was insisting that it was only midday, late afternoon at most, and it was deadly accurate. Something was wrong. _

_He turned to ask the girl, but stopped as he saw the look on her face. She was standing, arms wide apart, legs braced. Her features were twisted in an agonised rictus, head thrown back, every muscle in her body convulsing in pain he could almost feel against his skin. The girl screamed, a wrenching sound, and collapsed lifelessly._

_Just when things were going so well………he thought whimsically. And he moved towards the girl's body. _

Though he had no way of knowing, the sun dipped beneath the horizon.

A/N: yeah, whoo! One chapter and the epilogue to go! This chapter is dedicated to Miss L Anyus, for her sweet review of the previous one. Oh, and points to eternally-twilight for guessing about the fluff. Will Sesshy ever be the same? By the way, does anyone know how I can sign up to receive challenges? I'm really interested in them but I'm rather new to this site.Thanks.


	9. Transformation

_**Chapter sixteen: Transformation.**_

Jinx's body shattered into shimmering, burning sparks that hung in the air. The vague Jinx-shape of the form vanished, replaced by a solid circle. Each spark glowed individually, and the space between them was inky black, even though there couldn't possibly be any black behind the stone altar the circle was positioned over.

Sesshoumaru raised Toukijin – when had he retrieved it? – but Raven stopped him with a light touch on his wrist. 'Not yet,' she said quietly. 'Trigon is intending to pass through Jinx. That circle contains his DNA.' The inuyoukai looked at her blankly. 'The information needed to remake his body. When he emerges, the first few moments before the resurrection is complete………he'll need all his magic to keep himself together for a while. That's when we strike.'

Trigon's head was tilted back as he observed the sky. The sun was almost gone now, and it was nearly time for the resurrection. He could feel the alignment of the heavens protesting. Unlike the previous time, there was no true prophecy of his revival. He had no consent from Reality to return to the living, and that weakened him.

Well, he cared not.

He was powerful enough to throw his weight against that of the universe, if only for an infinitesimal moment, and that was enough. He would rebuild his power once he was alive again.

The sun set, and his barrier broke.

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Inuyasha stopped before he reached the ruins, alerted by something she couldn't sense. 'A barrier,' he said grimly, setting her down on the ground. He unsheathed Tetsusaiga, eyeing the faint shimmer in the air between them and the altar. It glowed dark red in instant response to his need, and he screamed in fury as he brought it down with all his might, shattering the obstruction as if it were delicate glass.

Inuyasha took a second to survey the situation. Trigon (in Naraku's body) was standing in the ruins of the library, a barrier around his body. Sesshoumaru was snarling, a strange rising and falling inflection that she had never quite heard from him before. Raven was crackling with energy.

Why weren't they _doing_ anything?

'Hey,' he said harshly. The demon turned his gaze consideringly on the hanyou. 'You this Trigon guy?'

'That is my name.'

'Keh. For someone who's got us all worried, you're kind of small, aren't you?'

Raven and Sesshoumaru, who had both seen the demon's true form, lifted an eyebrow at this statement.

Trigon laughed, obviously thinking of the same thing. 'Prepare to die, fool,' the demon rumbled.

'That's my line, ugly!' Inuyasha spat before he lunged at the demon. Tetsusaiga glowed like blood as it sliced through the barrier. Trigon stepped back, mildly surprised.

If Naraku could have seen it, he would have been darkly amused by that.

Tetsusaiga's second blow struck straight for the unprotected demon's neck. Trigon didn't even react. He simply lifted an arm in defense. An inch from the arm, the fang slammed into a barrier……..and could go no further. Inuyasha's eyes widened incredulously as he stopped in midair, unable to even cut skin. 'You're strong,' Trigon noted. 'I'm stronger.' Inuyasha gritted his teeth and attacked again. Trigon stepped sideways, barely missing the sword. Again and again, he struck to no effect. 'I'm a telepath, you fool,' the demon laughed. 'I know everything that's in your mind.'

'Obviously not, or you'd be running away right now,' Inuyasha sneered, and consequently left himself open for the next punch.

Trigon's arm came around in a thundering punch that lifted Inuyasha off his feet and slammed him clear across the ruins into another building. Tetsusaiga clattered to the ground some distance away, untransforming.

And then, while all three were still stunned by the casual way Trigon had deflected one of the most powerful weapons in the world, he struck, white beams of light stabbing out from his eyes. The first was aimed at Sesshoumaru, who dodged nimbly; the second at Raven, who put up a barrier. The barrier held, but the speed of the bolt sent her flying straight towards a pile of sharp boulders. She managed to catch herself just in time, flying free of the rubble and into the air.

The third bolt was aimed at Kagome.

The miko saw it coming, but unlike the others, she was not blessed with physical powers or superhuman reflexes, and it was too fast for her to shoot a banishing arrow at it. At the very last instant, Sesshoumaru slammed into her waist, pushing her down and out of its way. Instead of taking the beam in her chest, it hit her shoulder, an instant flare of white-hot pain spreading through her body in addition to the pain from the cut on her chest. Then it really began to hurt. Kagome screamed as she hit the ground. Sesshoumaru was suddenly gone as he attacked Trigon again, drawing him away from her.

The next moment, Inuyasha was there, golden eyes dark with fear as he saw the wound. The fire had cauterised it, burning a clean hole in her shoulder.

Not dark with fear, the miko realised foggily through the agony. Dark with something else. And he wasn't holding Tetsusaiga.

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Kagome stared at him fuzzily, but Inuyasha could see the knowledge dawn in her eyes. 'You're turning youkai,' she said faintly. If he had been human, he would never have heard her. She was the only one who could keep him sane, keep him himself, the only one…….make me stay, Kagome –

'Don't let it take you over for good, you hear me? Come back to me, or I swear I'll sit you to the middle of the earth.'

Dimly he realised that she wasn't trying to stop him as she had before. What was she thinking? But it was too late, he was lost, his last hope of sanity gone. Tetsusaiga was too far, and he could feel the change beginning already. He could feel the blood rage in him, pounding and calling. He could feel the pulse around him, that eerie extension of his inner aura into external space that blurred his vision and summoned his powerful mindless youkai self in time with the beat of his heart. It rose insistently, different from what it was before. Earlier, it was self-preservation that had prompted his youkai form's appearance. This time……..the wound wasn't fatal, but that wasn't the point. Kagome was his, she was everything, and she had been attacked. He had failed his pack, and his youkai was not going to allow him to do it again.

_He has harmed Kagome. Kill._

Struggling to reach the sword, he wondered why she had not resisted the change.

_The pack is in danger. Kill._

He would not lose control again.

_Kill kill kill kill kill_

No! Inuyasha raged futilely.

But his eyes were turning red, his claws lengthening, teeth turning into true sharp fangs, and he waited fatalistically for the red curtain to drop on his sanity as it always had. But it didn't happen. He could feel the physical change, it was complete, but the clarity of his mind was intact. He could hear a whisper in his mind, in his own voice.

_This is how it was meant to be, this blood rage. You and I together. _

His eyes opened wide in realisation.

_A mind is like a chain,_ his youkai whispered. _When the two of us are present simultaneously, the chain becomes too strong to be broken. Kagome knew. _

He straightened, looking Trigon full in the eyes. The demon looked puzzled. Inuyasha smirked. 'Can't read my mind now, can you?'

Deliberately, he turned his back on the demon and walked to where Tetsusaiga lay, rusty as ever, in the ground.

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'I thought he was mindless when he transformed?' Raven said, watching Inuyasha stride towards his weapon. Trigon's eyes never left the hanyou.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, thinking about the words he exchanged with the tree sprit when he had sought him out to discover the secret of Inuyasha's transformation. After his brother had killed Ryukotsusei after controlling his transformation to some extent, he had gone to the tree spirit again.

'_There are two kinds of transformation hanyou can have,' the tree spirit had said, its face twisting as it considered, the tree bending to accommodate the expression. 'The first is the kind you described to me, when they seek to protect themselves. That transformation has no purpose outside the hanyou's own life; no bond can reach them then. But should the hanyou transform to protect someone else, he retains his clarity of mind and purpose. The change is linked to the blood of their pack. That transformation is linked to the pack-bond as a result, and it can be controlled to some extent by the hanyou. Even then, the transformation is dangerous and should not be maintained for long.'_

'_And how does one tell the difference?' Sesshoumaru said, his expression blank as ever. _

'_Is this a hypothetical question, or is it related to your brother, my Lord?' the spirit asked slyly. Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed. _

'_It is none of your business,' he said icily. _

'_Oh,' said the other, clearly understanding. 'Well, should there be wards cast on that hanyou, wards that control his or her youkai state, they should fail to function when the rage is directed at protection instead of self-preservation. Wards such as an ensorcelled sword.'_

Should fail to function…….Sesshoumaru watched, inwardly tense, as Inuyasha approached Tetsusaiga, waiting for something, anything. If the sword rejected him, then he was lost, and he would have to be killed.

Needless to say, not something he relished. Not to mention dealing with a royally pissed Kagome afterwards, he added blackly.

'Distract Trigon, Raven,' Sesshoumaru said, not liking the way it came out as a request rather than a command. Raven nodded tightly and attacked, sending blasts of dark energy at the demon. He responded with bolts of his own, though he seemed reluctant to leave the place he was standing.

Inuyasha's hand seemed to take forever to reach out to the sword……..and then his slender clawed fingers wrapped securely around the hilt. He immediately went into a convulsion of power, his body trembling as questing tendrils of power shot from the Tetsusaiga's blade, licking over him before they subsided and disappeared. Sesshoumaru relaxed fractionally. The sword had accepted him. He was secure.

'Enough of this,' Trigon snapped, striding forward. With blasts of his own, he deflected Raven's dark energy. He vanished from view for a second, only to reappear on top of the palm-shaped altar. 'It is time. I will not allow you weaklings to interfere any longer.'

He stepped through the glowing circle, and flame enveloped him.

The transformation was quick…….almost too quick. Naraku's form seemed to shimmer, replaced briefly with Trigon's blood-red antlered silhouette, then Naraku…….Trigon…. Naraku again. Each time, Trigon's form became more and more solid and Naraku's more transparent.

_Too late,_ Kagome thought, bitterness flooding through her as she saw Trigon on the altar. She had tried to call out to Naraku, but her fluctuating miko powers had not been able to reach him as easily as he reached her. _I'm too late, too late, too………_wait. Maybe there was one last chance.

She wrenched the vial at her neck open. The Shikon shards winked up at her pinkly, maliciously from her palm. The shards could amplify the powers of anyone who used them. They were the reason this entire mess had come about………and maybe its salvation as well.

Closing her eyes, she called, the Shikon no Tama amplifying her power.

Inuyasha froze for a moment as he felt a pulse of energy from her that rivaled anything he had ever felt in terms of sheer power. And then he stopped altogether as she screamed the one name he could never have expected. It was silent and wordless, a simple summons, but the amount of force she expended in making that telepathic call translated it into words, into a shriek of sound that drummed into the heads of the two youkai she shared pack-bond with – into the receptive mind of the empath – into the demon that was transforming himself within the portal above them.

'NARAKU! NOW!'

Everyone turned to look at the miko with varying degrees of shock. She kept her eyes closed. Felt for any change in the youki around her, in her mind, anything that indicated that Naraku had heard. Nothing changed.

Trigon's opaque flame eyes opened, sought her questioningly, but she evaded them. The miko had drawn her own conclusions about the source of Raven's power, and she knew better than to meet a telepath's eyes – if she had to guess, that was the trigger.

She also didn't want to see the expression on Inuyasha's face.

The body twitched within the flame, imperceptibly at first. Then shivers ran through it as Trigon and Naraku struggled in some way Kagome couldn't understand.

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The snake-youkai that was rushing towards Kagura at supersonic speeds suddenly slowed, nearly killing her as her wind blades went wild. Behind her, she could hear the humans shouting something. Her name?

'Kagura! Get down!'

That was the monk. Puzzled but not interested in taking a risk, she dismissed her feather and descended to the ground.

Miroku unwound the sacred cloth from his hand. The void in his palm flared to life, drawing in the suddenly sluggish youkai. Within a few moments, he had finished the youkai that surrounded them and bound his hand again.

'Nice!' Beast Boy said. 'Why didn't you do that before?'

Miroku shrugged. 'I didn't know how the time spell would affect the tunnel.'

Robin was peering into the darkness with his night vision goggles. 'There's more coming!'

Miroku's eyes widened as he saw the youkai approaching. There were too many for the rest to handle, and Kouga and Kagura were already tired. 'Stand back,' he said with preternatural calm. He could feel the wind tunnel ripping at his palm. Had been feeling it, in fact, for almost a month before his unexpected time travel. It was almost time.

He opened the wind tunnel and let it rip. (A/N: I know. Terrible pun.)

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'_What have you done?' Trigon roared within his mind at the tiny presence that was Naraku. _

'_Oh, shut up,' Naraku said rudely. He could sense the miko listening to the conversation, their connection unsnapped, and the fact that Trigon couldn't only fueled his amusement at finally getting the better of the demon. _

'_How dare you–'_

'_I dare. I dare everything.' The hanyou sounded very calm, and Trigon stared at him in baffled fury. His body was changing in some way, some strange division was being ripped wider. He knew he didn't know everything about hanyou bodies, but this ability was not –_

'_You thought I was a youkai, didn't you? I'm not normal, Trigon. I am an exception; some would say, an abomination. I am a mixture of several youkai, and once a month, I turn human again, and my youkai parts separate.' Naraku smirked. 'And here's the sweetest thing. I get to choose when.' _

_Trigon struggled to maintain the body, but it was already too late. He had been so absorbed in turning time forward and keeping his barriers intact that he had not bothered to pay attention to what the prisoner was doing. A dangerous mistake, as it turned out. _

'_I'll KILL YOU!' he swore, summoning fire. _

_Dying was fine, just fine, but not by this one's hand, it wasn't. Naraku laughed in Trigon's face and let go of the precarious hold he had on life. _

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Kagome was slammed out of Trigon's mind by Naraku just before he killed himself. She could feel that clearly, as clearly as she could hear his last words to her, and the brief explanation he'd shoved into her brain.

_A parting gift, Kikyou. _

And then he'd thrown her out and back into the real world. Kagome looked down at her hands. The jewel shards had dug into her palm, leaving angry red marks. No blood.

Trigon staggered forward, out of the circle. His body was a strange mixture of Naraku's and Trigon's, wavering between one and the other. Before she could feel hope, Trigon's body consolidated into a smaller version of his true form. Trigon roared, his body swelling as he regained his original size. They watched him, fascinated, as his head arched back to regard the inky sky, crimson eyes darkening and brightening as his inner struggle continued.

Inuyasha leapt up into the air, drawing Tetsusaiga back. He could feel the Wind Scar form around his blade. Trigon's aura was overwhelmingly strong; the sword could probably have pulled it off without him. 'Ever seen a Wind Scar, ugly?' he snarled, scenting Trigon's aura. 'It's to die for!'

The golden blast hit Trigon squarely in the chest, and the demon screamed in pain, staggering back. Inuyasha smiled ferally, displaying long gleaming fangs, and pressed the attack. Without the advantage of his telepathy, the demon was unable to fend off his blows. But he healed as quickly as Inuyasha struck at his limbs, growing new ones as quickly as Naraku had.

Below him, at Trigon's feet, Sesshoumaru prepared to use Toukijin. Then Tenseiga pulsed at his hip. Startled, he looked at the sword. It seemed to be calling him. He drew it, understanding. If Tenseiga was responding to the demon's presence, then he was not truly of the living. The underworld had not relinquished its claim on him, and resisting that pull was using up too much of his power. This was going to be too easy.

'Raven!' Kagome screamed from the ruins. She was standing, clutching her bow. She would never be able to draw with that shoulder. 'He's still struggling to stay together!'

If her guess was right, somewhere on his body was a node that served as a sort of spiritual adhesive for the body. The aura around it was unmistakable. Aiming at it would unhinge the spells that bound Trigon together. He wasn't alive at all. He was just a corpse who'd bandaged himself together with someone else's body.

'Got it!' the empath yelled back, circling Trigon, evading his white blasts of power, retaliating with her own. Looking for a weak point, Sesshoumaru realised. 'The back! Spider mark!'

'Inuyasha. Use the Wind Scar on the mark–'

'That's not good manners,' Inuyasha said, sincerely shocked for a second.

Raven gaped at him. What? 'To hell with manners!' she said and let loose a thunderous blast of her own. It hit the spider mark and……..split, tiny focused strings of power stabbing the flesh around the mark. Trigon convulsed and then split apart, all the half-transformed youkai that made up his body splitting apart as the node that connected them was destroyed. They were a strange mix of the youkai they had been when they were Naraku, and of parts of Trigon's body.

For Trigon himself, the split was painless. His alternate body was designed to split, after all. But Raven wasn't finished, not by a long shot. The black threads of power that she had used to disconnect Trigon's weakened body firmed and widened, keeping the parts away from each other. The demon struggled, trapped in midair, trying to bring his body back together. Raven made a small sound of pain in her throat as she kept the barriers up. She was dangerously close to the limit.

Sesshoumaru moved then, slicing Tenseiga across the component youkai. None of them were very strong, and they died instantly. They had already been partially integrated into Trigon's body, and organs cannot live without the head.

Which had managed to turn within its barrier to face Raven. The empath, caught in her own explosion of power, had her eyes closed, face contorted in extreme pain. The eyes powered up a blast, determined to kill her. Inuyasha noticed and darted to defend her, knocking her aside and leaping up to intercept the blast. He half-closed his blood-red eyes, _feeling_ the power rushing from the demon…….and cut it with a circular sweeping motion at that precise point that he could never explain the location of but understood viscerally.

The Backlash Wave struck Trigon's energy and turned it against the demon, the tornadoes sweeping towards the source of the blast. Sesshoumaru swept his arm down, adding Tenseiga's force to the wave. At the same moment, Raven withdrew the internal barriers between the component youkai and Trigon's head and divided her flow into two. One band of dark energy enclosed the parts of Trigon's body inside a barrier, while the other wrapped the dark energy around the Backlash Wave instead, channeling it straight for Trigon's body. The confined space made the attack even more powerful. It struck the demon in a concentrated explosion, breaking his body apart in a few seconds.

The shriek of the wind died down with Trigon's dying scream.

Raven collapsed.

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The fifth praying mantis demon was sucked into his palm, and as it went in, it slashed at the edge of the wind tunnel. It was the worst sort of déjà vu, and Miroku took a second to appreciate the irony of it before he felt the nerves in his palm scream and then go numb. Time up, game over.

'Get away from me!' he screamed. Sango and Robin, who were closest to him, shot him puzzled looks. 'It's going to take me,' he forced out through the pain.

Robin caught on faster than Sango and grabbed her arm, forcing her away from him. 'Miroku……?' she cried as understanding struck.

He couldn't hear her. The wind tunnel was howling, and the sound blocked everything out. The others were safe, though. That was the most important thing. More youkai were being pulled into him as the wind tunnel's power increased. It had nearly absorbed his arm now. Above him, a giant horse-youkai shrieked as it was sucked up into the air and then down towards the void in his palm.

Just before he was sure he was going to die, it stopped, just like that. The awful ripping burn faded – or at least, it got no worse. Miroku tore his eyes away from the milling youkai in time to see the wind tunnel vanish from his palm yet again.

And then, before he could even take a second to understand the fact that he was free of the curse, that Trigon and Naraku were dead – the bloody horse youkai fell on him.

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Inuyasha saw the demon die, saw Raven fall and Sesshoumaru catch her and place her on the ground next to Kagome. The tension eased from him slowly, leaving him with the strange sensation of two selves in one mind, hanyou and youkai. Unlike his previous transformations, there was no resistance from the youkai – it faded easily and gently, leaving him shaking with physical and mental exhaustion, leaning heavily on Tetsusaiga, which he had jammed point-down into the ground.

Kagome watched, fascinated, as he changed back more gradually than he usually did. Turquoise pupils faded to normal black, and red to gold. His fangs and claws returned to normal, and the bold jagged stripes across his cheeks faded into his skin. The darker aura disappeared. He never let go of Tetsusaiga. The transformation complete, he sagged to his knees, utterly exhausted from keeping control.

For a long time, nobody spoke or moved. After a while, there was a great shriek of sirens as the Jump City Police came there. The Commissioner had ordered all his men to stay away from the fighting – standing orders from the Titans. An ambulance pulled up too, and Kagome was lifted onto a stretcher. Inuyasha growled tiredly, but Kagome shushed him and allowed herself to be taken into the ambulance. Inuyasha followed her; a doctor tried to stop him after seeing his dog ears, but a lift of a lip and the way the miko clutched his hand were enough to ensure him passage. A pair of paramedics headed for Raven, but Sesshoumaru waved them off. 'She is sleeping,' he said curtly before scooping her up in his arm and streaking away.

He was about halfway to the island where Titans' Tower had stood when the communicator squawked. It was Robin. Sesshoumaru set the sleeping Titan down and picked up the communicator.

'So you've dealt with Trigon?'

'He is dead.'

Robin wasn't as elated by the news as he expected. 'Miroku's dead too,' he reported.

Tenseiga pulsed at the sound of the monk's name. Sesshoumaru groaned. He was being turned into a real errand boy recently. 'I'll be there,' he reported.

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Raven sat up straight, jolted suddenly awake as her mind remembered that she had been in the middle of a battle.

'You really should stop fainting when you're fighting,' Sesshoumaru's cool voice said. She opened her eyes reluctantly. The youkai was sitting on a rock, watching her. She was lying on a bed of soft grass on the beach overlooking the island.

'I can assure you it's a recent development. Try doing everything I did today and feeling bright and perky afterwards. Besides, if you want to get technical, I didn't faint, I went into a healing trance. Where is everyone?'

'They aren't here,' the inuyoukai replied. 'The humans were injured, and they went to hospital. The wind witch and the wolf have left the planet. She said you would understand. I didn't know where else to bring you.'

'Oh,' Raven said, feeling strange and purposeless now that it was all over. 'Well, all right. They're all okay, then?'

Something flickered in Sesshoumaru's eyes. 'Yes, they are well. You need to sleep.'

'Sesshoumaru. Thank you.'

'Thank you, Raven,' he replied in a strangely formal tone before her eyes closed again.

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When she woke up again, it was morning. Beast Boy was watching her carefully, sitting on the rock Sesshoumaru had occupied.

'Rae!' he squealed happily when she opened her eyes, and promptly hugged her. Raven twitched madly. Hugs were okay, as long as there weren't too many, and it was less than twenty-four hours after the previous one. However, she decided to forgo the usual threats of disembowelment in view of the circumstances.

'Everybody's here?' she said, sitting up and pushing him away.

'Yeah,' he said. Then his ears drooped sadly. 'Robin's working on Cy. The rest of us are trying to figure out how to rebuild Titans' Tower. Kagome's pretty hurt, so she's taking care of the explanations.'

'Sesshoumaru? Rin?'

'Sesshoumaru was gone when I got here; I tracked your scent from the library to here. He took Rin from police headquarters. Say, Trigon really did a number on it, didn't he?'

'Hn.' Oh, god, she was turning into him. Next she'd be making 'foolish human' comments. He'd left? Without saying anything?

……..how……..impolite.

'I take it he's Gon now? Well, he did Tri hard,' Beast Boy said thoughtfully. 'I guess he couldn't take the strain. Just fell apart, I heard. He always was a nervous kind of demon.'

'You're still not funny,' Raven said, but after eight years she had to crack up sometime, and the laughter took her off guard. The shapechanger looked mildly alarmed as she giggled, chuckled and finally laughed, high-pitched, nearly hysterical.

'All right. Where are you and what have you done with Raven?' he said, half-serious.

She brought herself under control again. 'I'm free, Beast Boy,' she said, still smiling. 'I can feel all my emotions at the same time. The spell he laid on me, it's dissolved. I'm free. I laughed, and nothing blew up, see?'

The shapechanger examined the beach cautiously, not convinced of his teammate's sanity just yet. It was true. Nothing was in pieces, levitating, or otherwise destroyed.

Raven, free to feel whatever she wanted. Raven, smiling. It was too weird.

'If you're even thinking about hugging me again, I'll kill you,' she warned.

Then again……..he mused, some things just didn't change.

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Rebuilding Titans' Tower took a few weeks. Given the current mood in Jump City, they could probably have taken the metropolis over without much protest from the citizens. Robin firmly tamped down on that thought.

The new Tower was built along the same lines as the old, but with a few little extras added. Cyborg directed most of the building.

After struggling to repair the metalman for three days, Robin had simply given up and hunted down Gizmo instead and beat him into fixing Cyborg up. The little bald genius wisely elected to agree to the Titan's demands and made him good as new in far less time. Of course, the HIVE graduate was detained further until Cyborg could check himself for viruses, booby traps and backdoors. And then Robin threw him in jail for jaywalking just to prove that he was the baddest guy in town and they had better not forget it.

Inuyasha and the others left for Tokyo soon after, to see if the well portal was still open. After a bit of hunting, they had found the almost-complete jewel in the ruins of the library. Even after Kouga's shards were added, one tiny fragment of the jewel was missing – the fragment that had been in Kohaku's back. They still didn't know if Miroku and Sango could use the well, but there was no harm in trying.

And yes, Miroku did take a finger-sized video camera with him, although he decided on sober reflection that he would never get anywhere with Starfire. A Little Chat with Robin helped him immensely with that decision, and the Titan looked smug – well, smugger – for days after.

There was no contact from Sesshoumaru.

Raven spent days poring through old spell books, looking for any leads on what might have happened to Jinx. There were few clues, but the empath kept looking. It was Terra over again for the Titans, and she would not fail again.

And Beast Boy finally did master the inuyoukai form, though they all agreed that a furry green dog wasn't really that impressive even if it was half the size of Titans' Tower.

A/N: _'Ever seen a Wind Scar, ugly? It's to die for!' _ Inuyasha says this when he's fighting Kyokotsu of the Shichinin-tai. Since in this AU he'll never face them, he says it to Trigon – who's also undead. Neat, eh?

I know. Shameless gloating.

Dun-done-dun! Wow.

By the way, the last part will be extensively revised later.

Thanks, guys! Seeya soon!


	10. Epilogue: Return

**_Epilogue: Return_**

She was fast asleep in the afternoon after a strenuous battle when his call came. The lightest of touches on the pack-bond in the back of her mind, a request.

_Raven?_

Forty minutes later, she was waiting in front of Jump City's best chocolate shop, dripping wet from the drizzling rain. A minute after she got there, a striped hand tapped her gently on the shoulder – from behind, as always.

'You have got to stop _doing_ that!' she said, still trying not to yelp.

Sesshoumaru was as immaculate as ever. But his attire had changed completely. He wore a very modern shirt and slacks – white, of course. She didn't think that was going to change any time soon. He still wore the boots and the swords and the moko-moko sama. Passersby were shooting slightly nervous looks at him. Raven wasn't surprised. For all his neatness, he looked as if he'd just escaped from Arkham.

He paused, looking at her impassively. 'So you heard me,' he said in English. Well, he was a fast learner. 'Congratulations on finding me here. I thought you'd figure it out.'

'And that's all you have to say after a year and a half?' she shot back in the same language.

'Hn.' He was laughing, the twisted freak.

'I really hate you, you know that?' She was feeling remarkably childish, but hell, she deserved to yell at him.

'I told you I would leave. Did you doubt me?'

Raven twitched, both at his tone and at the cold water trickling down her hood and inside her cloak. 'Where's Rin?'

'In school. It's amazing how quickly she's picked up the language.' He was positively glowing with paternal pride.

More water dribbled down her hair. 'Do you actually have a house or something around here? I'm getting wet.'

They wound up at an apartment house, one of the more expensive ones, spacious and luxurious, situated right on the harbour, with an impressive view of Jump City.

Raven raised an eyebrow. 'Nice place. Yours?'

Nodding, he shook the water from his silver hair. Dug out a pair of rimless glasses and slipped them on. They looked…..kind of cute, though she would never admit it. 'I bought it a few weeks ago. I've been planning to return for a while now.'

'Oh.' He was shielding his emotions, but she didn't have to scan his aura to know he was amused. Which irritated her. 'Would I like the answer if I asked where you got the money?'

'I own a flourishing business venture,' he replied with a straight face.

'It can't possibly get you this far this soon,' she scoffed. He didn't reply, and her eyes widened. 'Oh God, you're a crook, aren't you?'

He shrugged, an oddly modern action that brought home just how much he had changed since he left Titans' Tower. 'I would have made a poor kindergarten teacher.'

'And you crack jokes. The world is ending.' Raven leaned against a window, the cold glass grounding her. She could see the vague outline of Titans' Tower through the clouds and rain. 'So what is it you do, exactly, and how long will it be before I have to put you behind bars?'

Sesshoumaru sat down on a couch and regarded her over the edge of his glasses. 'Things are changing, Raven. Supervillains aren't isolated anymore. There is a counterpart and an equal to the Justice League, now; in a few years, the less morally straightlaced and better intellectually equipped citizens of the world will be a part of it. And even if you did come here to arrest me, you'd never succeed. Would you like some tea?'

Raven choked. 'That's impossible. The Justice League would have heard if some sort of conglomerate like the one you're implying would have formed.'

'It's not really all that old, Raven.' He shot her a sharp look. 'And it's quite selective. I don't aim to let just anyone in. I want the artists, the survivors, the truly talented ones. The fools who rely on brawn, not brain, can stay out.'

'_You_ started it? I never figured you for the team player type.'

'It's not a team, merely a resource pool. For now.' He crossed over to the kitchen area, where an electric kettle was already boiling. Demon speed. Had she turned her back on him? 'Of course, the shape it takes in future years is quite unpredictable. They're an interesting lot, these supervillains.' He poured hot tea into two mugs. Raven picked one up and sniffed tentatively. It was her usual herbal blend. Until today, she had believed that she was the only one who knew the recipe.

'You would think that,' she accused. This encounter was turning surreal. 'We'll defeat you, you know. The Justice League's won against every supervillain there is.'

'Maybe so, maybe so. But imagine. Slade's technology, backed by Lex Luthor's money and, say, Catwoman's skills…….really nice tea, isn't it?'

'Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?' there, that was better than thinking about the scenario he'd so casually laid out. Sesshoumaru sighed and leaned back against the cushions, still looking at her.

'Entertainment,' he offered, sipping the tea.

Raven choked again. 'Entert – oh, for – you can't possibly be serious!'

'Oh, I'm quite serious. I've lived for centuries, Raven, even excluding those I skipped, and I'll last dozens more. I've done some research while I was gone, Raven. I can survive just about any weapon, physical, chemical or biological, that your world has come up with. Right now, I'm indestructible, and it's beginning to bore me to be a wanderer. In a few decades, I might tire of being on their side and come back to yours. It doesn't really matter what I do, as long as I enjoy it.'

She shivered. His sincerity was obvious, which made his statement all the more frightening. For the second time in her life, she was facing something beyond her reckoning. The only thing that kept her from blasting her way out was her conviction that he couldn't harm her, wouldn't harm her.

'It's the truth, and you know it. I don't have to count the years, or even the decades. Neither do you, for that matter. After a while, all that matters is how you keep yourself on the edge, how you make yourself feel…..alive.' His eyes closed and he looked almost pensive for a second.

Raven grimaced. Her lifespan as a half-demon was something she hated thinking about. There was too much loneliness implied there. Humans wouldn't live a fraction of her lifetime. And she rarely made contact with youkai.

Then he dropped the next one on her, just as she was beginning to relax.

'The world needs her supervillains, you know, just as much as she needs superheroes.'

'What?' she said feebly.

'In all things, there is a certain balance. As long as the balance is maintained, there will be no disruption, things will go on as they were.'

'And you're disrupting that balance!'

'Of course I am.' He smiled, ever so slightly. 'Without disruption, there can be no real movement. Not forward, not backward; just a more efficient form of the same old world, the same old problems and solutions. The world's been placid too long, heroes and villains matched too perfectly. This league I have initiated, it will ensure the supremacy of either the Justice League or itself. Either way, it will become a catalyst for change. Once one or the other wins, I can move to disband it.'

The confidence with which he spoke, the efficiency with which he had disarmed her struck her yet again. This situation was completely under control….his.

'Why are you telling me this?' she asked, regaining some part of herself.

'Join me, Raven.'

Three words. They could have been three punches for the effect they had on her……not because she hadn't expected them, but because for a microsecond she had caught herself considering it. Then she drew her identity around her like a second cloak and was the Titan again. 'You can go to hell and shake hands with the devil.'

'I expected that,' he said. 'Well, that makes things much more interesting.'

'Yeah, well, what I'll find interesting is the look on your partners' faces when they find out you've been talking to me about this hush-hush deal of yours.'

'Actually, they know I'm with you here and now.' He was really enjoying this. 'We feel it's time to go public with our idea. They're informing other members of the Justice League as we speak. Robin should be receiving his call from Slade any minute now. I only had an advantage because of the pack-bond.'

'So I'm, what, your chosen archenemy?' Raven looked at Titans' Tower again. 'You say I'm pack, but you're going to fight me?'

'So would you,' he reminded her. 'I'll just have to be careful not to hurt you, that's all. Not much, anyway,' he added as an afterthought.

Not hurt her much? Be careful? Raven twitched. 'How would it feel to be a girl for a day or two? I can do that, I promise you.'

Now it was his turn to twitch. 'I look forward to seeing you again, Raven.' He stood, and he didn't have to add that the conversation was over.

She walked down the steps of the building into the rain, pondering his words as she pulled the hood of her cloak up to shield herself. Balance and disruption, change and permanence. Well, she had time to fight him. She had decades. Centuries. As he said, it would be something to keep them both occupied.

Sesshoumaru was right.

Life had just become a hell of a lot more interesting.

A/N: hmm. Well, it's been fun…… Sequel? Maybe. Probably. Any ideas, anyone?

I simply couldn't see Sesshoumaru as a Titan (though seeing him in a tight-fitting spandex suit would have sent me into instant cardiac arrest) or a member of the Justice League; and he's too much of an opportunist to return to Sengoku Jidai. So I took the easy way out – with a little flair.

Hugs for all my reviewers, and may more keep coming.

Seeya,

Niru


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